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Copyright, 1920, 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Ino. 



OCT 27 1320 


©CU601062 




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£S ©eJfc , /9a o> 


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TO 

KATHLEEN ANN 

I DEDICATE THIS STORY 
WHICH WAS BEGUN FOR HER MOTHER 
KATHLEEN NOEL 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Introduces Peggy and Some op Her Friends . 1 

II Peggy’s Surprising Adventure Begins . . 16 

III The Royal Ark and the Bad Behaviour of 

Wooden’s Aunt 31 

IV Momentous News is Brought by a Dutch Doll 46 

V Arrival at the Royal Palace of Doll-Town . 59 

VI King Selim Holds an Audience .... 74 

VII They All go to Prison 90 

VIII Peggy Bathes a Baby and has a Surprise . 107 
IX They Discuss a Plan of Escape .... 124 
X Peggy Talks to a Royal Prisoner .... 137 
XI The Release of Peggy and Wooden . . . 151 

XII Peggy Stays in a Real Dolls’ House . . . 165 

XIII The Dolls Talk it all Over 176 

XIV The Escape 190 

XV The Pursuit 203 

XVI Colonel Jim Attempts a Rescue .... 216 

XVII The Battle 227 

XVIII The Siege 238 

XIX Selim is Captured 252 

XX The Last 264 





PEGGY IN TOYLAND 



PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


i 

INTRODUCES PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 

Peggy was just eight years old. She had very long 
rather straight hair, blue eyes, a dear little pudgy nose, 
and a small mouth. She lived with her father and 
mother in a nice house in the country with a big garden 
round it. It was about five miles from the sea, and 
she was sometimes taken there in the motor-car, to 
paddle and to play on the sands. 

The place she used to go to had only one house near 
it. This was a large bungalow belonging to some 
friends of Peggy’s father and mother. It was built 
right on the beach, but there was a little lawn beside 
it, and on the edge of the lawn were two wooden figures 
that had been once figure-heads of ships. They were 
both ladies, and it was difficult to tell whether they were 
old or young, because one of them had had her nose 
broken off, and the other had lost every bit of paint 

1 


2 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


of! 'her face. But there was something agreeable in 
the appearance of both of them, and Peggy used to 
think she would have liked to know them when they 
were leading a more active life, perched up in the very 
front of the ships to which they belonged, and trav- 
elling over the sea to all sorts of strange places. But 
they still looked over the sea, which was better than 
being broken up and burnt, with the rest of the ships ; 
and of course they always looked in one direction, 
straight across the water to the big Island on the other 
side of it. 

Peggy had never been to the Island, and when she 
was playing on the sands she would sometimes look 
at it, and wonder what it was like there. She could 
see a little town and a little church, and a few houses 
scattered about among the hills; and she wondered 
what sort of people lived in them. 

Well, when she was eight years old she found out, 
and she also got to know a good deal more about the 
two wooden ladies of the bungalow. What she found 
out was so remarkable that it is doubtful if any little 
girl has ever seen anything like it before, and I am 
going to tell you the story of it. 

But before I begin I must say this : that if Peggy had 
not had a kind heart she would never have found out 


PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 3 


anything. I do not mean to say that she was never 
naughty ; but she was never naughty in that most hor- 
rid of all ways, by being cruel or unkind. She had 
several pets — two rabbits and four guinea-pigs, a ban- 
tam cock and hen, two white pigeons, and a kitten, 
which she liked best of them all. If she had once been 
cruel to any of these pets, just to see what they would 
do, it is quite certain that she would never have been 
taken to the Island. And if she had made fun of old 
people or poor people, she would never have gone 
either, because that is an extremely unkind and horrid 
thing to do. But Peggy had never done any of these 
things, because she was a really kind little girl, and if 
something horrid inside her whispered: “Now, just be 
a little bit cruel,” she was almost as much ashamed 
of it as if she had really been cruel, and she never 
listened to the whisper for a moment. So when she 
was eight years old she was taken to the Island in 
the extraordinary way I am going to tell you about. 

Peggy had a good number of toys, and amongst them 
two dolls, which will now engage our attention. 

The elder of the two was a wooden doll, which she 
had had for some time, and the story of this doll is 
rather interesting. 

When Peggy was five years old she had a doll given 


4 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


her called Rose. Rose was well-dressed, in clothes 
that would come on and off ; and rather a nice hat came 
with her. But somehow Peggy could not get to like 



her much. She took her about everywhere for quite 
a week, undressed her every night and dressed her 
again every morning, and sometimes gave her a bath, 


PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 5 


but not with water in it, because her body was stuffed, 
although her head was composition. She also took 
her out in the new pram that had been given to her 
at the same time, and put up the hood if it was sunny. 
In fact she did everything that a nice little girl could 
to make Rose feel that she had come to a kind and lov- 
ing home. 

But at the end of a week she didn’t feel that Rose 
really loved her. Most little girls know dolls like that. 
You may do all you can for them, and they don’t seem 
to appreciate it at all. Well, Rose was one of those 
dolls. 

One morning Peggy went out with her nurse, and 
took Rose with her in the pram. They went down 
through the village, and along the road on the other 
side, and presently they came to a cottage where a lot 
of children lived. Their mother was not very kind to 
them, and so they were not very kind to each other, 
but were always fighting and squabbling. 

One of these children was a girl a year older than 
Peggy, called Mabel, and just as Peggy and her nurse 
came up to the cottage they saw Mabel banging the 
head of an old wooden doll on the hard road. 

Now children and dolls are sometimes naughty, and 
must be corrected, but their heads should never be 


6 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


banged against anything hard. There are plenty of 
ways of correcting them without doing that, and every 



nice mother knows it. Peggy knew it as well as any- 
body, although she was a year younger than Mabel; 



PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 7 


so directly she saw what was being done she cried out 
to her nurse how cruel it was. 

Mabel stopped beating the wooden dolPs head 
against the road, and stared at Peggy, and at Rose, 
who was sitting in the pram ; and she must have fallen 
in love with Rose at first sight, because her face be- 
came quite different when she looked at her. 

While Mabel was looking at Rose, Peggy was look- 
ing at the wooden doll; and the more she looked the 
more her heart went out to her. She was not what 
you would call a beautiful doll, and perhaps never 
had been. One of her legs had been amputated at the 
knee, one of her arms at the shoulder, and the other at 
the elbow. Her face was round and open ; so were her 
eyes. Her nose was gone. The less said about her 
hair the better ; she would never need another shampoo. 
She was dressed in a loose frock of spotted red flannel, 
tied round the waist with an old piece of black hair- 
ribbon. 

Such was this doll, who was destined to play so 
large a part in Peggy’s life, as she first saw her; and 
it may seem odd to some people that she should in- 
stantly have loved her. Perhaps being such a kind 
little girl, and feeling so dreadfully sorry to see the 
doll so badly treated, had something to do with it ; but 


8 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


it could not have been only that. No, there was some- 
thing about this wooden doll which made Peggy love 
her at once, and when you have read this story, per- 
haps you will be able to understand what it was. 

Peggy told Mabel that she ought not to knock her 
doll’s head on the road, and Mabel pointed at Rose, 
and said : ‘ ‘ If I had a doll like that, I wouldn ’t want 

to knock ’er’ ead on the road.” 

It was then that the idea first came to Peggy that 
she would much rather have the wooden doll than 
Rose ; and she asked her nurse if she might give Rose 
to Mabel, and ask Mabel to give her the wooden doll 
instead. 

Nurse said: “The idea of such a thing!” and told 
Peggy to come on. Of course she was right not to let 
Peggy exchange dolls there and then, because she 
didn’t know whether Peggy’s mother would like it. 
But where she was wrong was when she said, ‘ ‘ Fancy 
wanting to exchange a beautiful doll like Rose for an 
ugly old wooden thing like that!” She didn’t under- 
stand that what she called beauty had nothing to do 
with it at all. You don’t love a person for their looks, 
but just because you can’t help loving them. And 
Peggy was quite right to love the wooden doll more 
than Rose, as afterwards turned out. 


PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 9 


Fortunately, Peggy’s mother understood these 
things better than the nurse. The end of it was that 
Peggy was allowed to give Rose to Mabel, with all her 
clothes except the hat, which had come on the same 
birthday as she had, but had not belonged especially 
to her. And Mabel gave Peggy the wooden doll, but 
without its red flannel dress, which Peggy’s mother 
thought might contain germs. 

Now that the wooden doll belonged to Peggy she 
had to give her a name. She called her Daffodil, be- 
cause the daffodils were out in the garden when she 
came. But the name never stuck to her. She was 
always called Wooden in the family circle; and pres- 
ently it was forgotten that she had ever had any other 
name. 

The first thing that happened to her was that she 
underwent an operation for restoring the limbs that 
were lost. It was a serious operation, and she was un- 
der chloroform for about a week. The chauffeur, 
whose name was Herbert, performed the operation, 
and when it was over Wooden had two arms and two 
legs just like everybody else. One of the legs some- 
times came off at the knee, and both arms at the el- 
bows. But Herbert, accustomed to making quick 
repairs, was always ready to perform other minor 


10 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


operations, and Wooden was seldom without her full 
number of limbs for long together. 

Wooden went through the usual illnesses, and was 
carefully nursed by Peggy. Perhaps she suffered 
rather more than most dolls, but Peggy’s father was a 
doctor, and there was always help at hand if anything 
serious happened. And of course Peggy knew more 
about cases, and nursing, than other little girls whose 
fathers were not doctors. Wooden had whooping- 
cough, croup, mumps, scarlet-fever, chicken-pox, 
measles, German-measles, swollen glands, general de- 
bility, bronchitis, typhoid, and lung trouble, all in the 
ordinary way. For some little time she was a spinal 
case, and had to be kept on her back. But she was 
always good and uncomplaining through her ailments, 
and Peggy loved her more because she was a trifle 
delicate than if she had always been in robust health. 

In fact, the longer Peggy had Wooden the more 
she loved her. She played with her more than with 
her other dolls, and Wooden was always the one she 
took to bed with her. Peggy had a large Teddy bear, 
which she also loved and took to bed with her. But 
there could be no jealousy between Wooden and Teddy, 
because they were so different. If Peggy sometimes 
dressed Teddy up in a jacket and skirt belonging to 



Peggy had a large Teddy bear 

11 





12 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


Wooden, it was always treated as a joke. As a rule 
he went about with nothing on but his own thick fur. 

Wooden had all the clothes of Peggy’s dolls’ ward- 
robe to wear, if they fitted her, and was better dressed 
than most dolls. And as everybody liked her when 
they once came to know her, she had plenty of things 
given her as time went on. When Miss Clay came 
to the house for a week or two to sew, she would gen- 
erally make something for Wooden out of the ma- 
terial left over. Once she made her a purple velvet 
jacket, and once a tailor-made skirt. As for night- 
gowns, and petticoats, and things like that, trimmed 
with lace, and sometimes with pink and blue ribbon, 
Wooden was so well supplied that Peggy’s father said 
her laundry bill was becoming quite a serious item. 
So it will be seen that Wooden was very much better 
off than when she had belonged to Mabel, and had 
only had one red flannel dress. 

We now come to the other doll of Peggy’s, of whom 
mention has been made. 

Her name was Lady Grace. She came on Peggy’s 
eighth birthday, and was really a beautiful doll, as 
everybody who saw her bore witness. She had been 
born in France, although she herself was English, and 
the clothes that came with her were finer than any of 


PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 13 


Wooden’s. Her face was wax, and she had beautiful 
hair. Her eyes opened and shut, and she had the 
sweetest little hands and feet, with pink toes and finger- 
tips. 

Peggy loved her at once. This was not altogether 
because of her beauty, for Rose had been beautiful — 
though not so beautiful as Lady Grace — and Peggy 
had never been able to love Rose at all. There was 
something about Lady Grace which made Peggy feel 
that she must look after her and pet her. And she 
never felt, as she had felt with Rose, that all her pet- 
ting was of no use. Lady Grace might not say much, 
but she showed that she was grateful to Peggy for all 
the care she took of her by being always sweet and 
good ; though she was, as I have said, rather helpless. 

Now, although Peggy loved Lady Grace from the 
first, it must not be supposed that she loved Wooden 
any the less. It was just as it is with children. 
When a new baby comes, the mother adores it, but she 
loves her other children just as much as she did be- 
fore. 

But, just at first, it must be confessed that Wooden 
had rather less attention ; and if she had not been so 
sensible she might have felt jealous. I don’t think she 
did, or she would have told Peggy so afterwards. She 


14 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


probably knew exactly how things were, and that, when 
Lady Grace had been made to feel quite at home, her 
turn would come again. 

Well, one night when Peggy went to bed, she took 
Lady Grace and Teddy with her, and left Wooden on 
the top of a chest of drawers with all her clothes on. 
And then Wooden might have felt a little sad, because 
it was the first time that such a thing had ever hap- 
pened to her; and she might have begun to wonder 
whether, after all, Peggy loved her quite as much as 
she had done before. 

But fortunately for this story, which might not 
otherwise have been written, as you will presently see, 
soon after Peggy had been tucked up and left to go to 
sleep, she remembered that she had not undressed 
Wooden. So she called her nurse, who was in the 
next room with the door a little open, and asked her 
to give Wooden to her. 

The nurse would not let her have two dolls in bed 
with her. Teddy didn’t matter because he was so soft. 
So Peggy asked her to put Lady Grace in the dolls’ 
cot, and give her Wooden instead. She felt dread- 
fully sorry that she had forgotten about Wooden, and 
wanted to make it up to her. Lady Grace would have 
to get used to sleeping in the cot some time or other, 


PEGGY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS 15 


and Peggy thought she might just as well begin now. 

So Peggy went to sleep hugging Wooden in her 
arms ; and Teddy lay on his back on the pillow on the 
other side of her, with one paw stuck up in the air 
and the rest of him under the bedclothes. 

By-and-by the nurse came in to look at her, and then 
went to bed in the next room. Then her father and 
mother came in and kissed her, but she did not wake 
up. Then the house became quiet and dark, and every- 
body in it was fast asleep. 

And then things began to happen. 



y 


Peggy’s surprising adventure begins 


Peggy was awakened by the noise of a motor outside. 
It sometimes happened that her father had to go out 
at night, and she heard the car start off. But she 
generally went to sleep again as soon as ever the noise 
had died away. 

But this time the car, instead of standing throbbing 
for a few minutes before the door, and then starting 
off down the drive and leaving everything as quiet and 
still as before, seemed to be coming nearer and nearer. 
In fact, it seemed as if it was being driven right into 
the room, and made such a noise that Peggy opened 
her eyes. And when she did open them, she opened 
them very wide indeed, for the car was in the room, 
standing right at the foot of the bed. And who should 
be driving it but Teddy, whom she had last seen lying 
on the pillow by her side? 

And that was not nearly all, for everything was 
changing all around her. The apple-blossoms on the 



blossoms 

17 


18 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


wall-paper had become real apple-blossoms, and were 
dancing in a bright spring breeze; the ceiling had 
melted away into blue sky ; and suddenly the little birds 
that had been sitting in a long row on the bough which 
ran round the top of the paper flew up all together and 
filled the air with their singing. 

Peggy sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. When 
she looked again there was Wooden standing by the 
side of the bed, smiling at her. 

“Get up, dear,” said Wooden in the kind and gentle 
voice that Peggy had known she would speak in if she 
ever spoke at all. “I am going to take you to Toy- 
land.” 

Teddy spoke at the same moment. He waved a 
paw in the air and said, “What ho! What larks!” 
and sounded his motor-horn. 

Now the moment that Wooden and Teddy spoke, 
Peggy left off being surprised altogether. Everything 
seemed quite natural, and she jumped up full of pleas- 
ure at the idea of an adventure. 

The moment her feet had touched the floor, lo and 
behold ! she was fully dressed, in a clean blue over-all, 
with her outdoor shoes and her big straw hat trimmed 
with daisies. Her face and hands were washed, her 
nails scrubbed, and her teeth cleaned; and her long 


PEGGY’S ADVENTURE BEGINS 19 

hair, which was always plaited for the night, was 
brushed and tied up with her blue ribbon. 

‘ 4 Come along, dear,” said Wooden, taking her hand. 
“We must start at once. Are you quite ready, Lady 
Grace?” 

“Yes,” said a soft, musical voice. Peggy looked 
towards the dressing-table, and there was Lady Grace 
pinning on her hat. She came and kissed Peggy. “I 
am sure you will like Toy land, dear,” she said, “and 
it is a great honour to be taken there.” 

Both Wooden and Lady Grace seemed to be grown- 
up all of a sudden, and ready to take care of Peggy, 
instead of her taking care of them. Lady Grace had 
on the beautiful French clothes in which she had come, 
and Wooden was dressed in her purple velvet jacket 
and her grey tailor-made skirt. She wore the straw 
hat that had come at the same time as Rose, and 
looked very nice altogether, but a little different, be- 
cause her nose was now perfect, and her face and eyes 
and hair had got all their colour back. She had a 
wonderfully kind and simple expression of face, and 
Peggy felt that it would be quite safe to go anywhere 
with her. 

Teddy was also life-size. Peggy had always known 
that he was of a very cheerful nature, for his face 


20 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 



had always seemed to be laughing at some joke. But 
he seemed to be rather forward in his manners, for as 
Lady Grace kissed Peggy he said with a sort of crow, 



PEGGY'S ADVENTURE BEGINS 


21 


“What ho, girls! You jump up and sit alongside me, 
my lady, and we’ll have a nice little chat as we go 
along. ’ ’ 

“Be careful, Teddy,” said Wooden in a warning 
voice. 

4 ‘ Oh, I ’ll be careful all right, ’ ’ said Teddy encourag- 
ingly. 1 ‘ Oh, what larks we ’re going to have ! ’ ’ 

Lady Grace got up in front of the car, and Peggy 
and Wooden behind. It was not Peggy’s father’s car, 
but a toy one which had been given to her. But it 
was now big enough to hold all four of them comfort- 
ably. 

Teddy sounded his horn and gave a whoop of joy, 
and the car drove straight out of the bedroom into the 
garden, though how it got there from her nursery on 
the first floor Peggy could never remember. 

Now, although it had been winter when Peggy went 
to bed, and the thermometer on the pergola outside 
had registered two degrees of frost, it had suddenly 
become the most delicious spring and summer weather 
combined. When Peggy saw the garden she clapped 
her hands with delight. Never was seen such a blaze 
of colour. Everything was out at once — all the trees, 
and all the shrubs, and all the flowers. The house was 
smothered in roses and honeysuckle and clematis. The 


22 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


daffodils were dancing in the grass. The rhododen- 
drons and azaleas flamed against the green of the 
darker shrubs. Every flower in the long border was 
in full bloom, from the scarlet anemones of the early 
spring to the yellow sunflowers and Michaelmas daisies 
of the late autumn; and so were the lilacs, white and 
purple, the guelder roses, the syringas, the may-trees 
and laburnums, the pink almond, and the Pyrus Malus 
Floribunda, which was Peggy’s favourite tree, though 
she never quite got its name right. There were thou- 
sands of blooms in the rose garden ; the climbing roses 
trained over the pergola were as gay as gay could be ; 
and even the newly-planted nut- walk had grown twelve 
feet in a few hours, and made a shady green tunnel 
through which you could see the park beyond. 

But there was not much time to take in all the won- 
ders of the garden, for Teddy whirled them through 
it in no time, out into the road and down to the village. 
The car seemed to be going faster than Peggy’s fa- 
ther’s big new one, but it travelled so easily and so 
smoothly that Peggy, who was a little nervous of mo- 
tors going very fast, said, ‘‘What a nice drive we’re 
having!” As they passed the clock over the Abbey 
gateway the hands were pointing to twelve o’clock, and 
Peggy, who could of course tell the time, knew some- 


PEGGY’S ADVENTURE BEGINS 


23 



how that it was really twelve o ’clock at night, and not 
twelve o’clock in the daytime, although the sun was 
shining with all its might. And as they turned and 


24 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


drove up the village street all the windows had their 
blinds down, and there were no people about. 

“Where are *we going?” Peggy asked. 

“We are going to Toyland,” said Wooden. “We 
all go there every night when people are asleep, and 
it is a lovely place; I am sure you will like it, dear. 
And I must tell you that it is very seldom we are al- 
lowed to take little girls there. When you were so 
kind to me, and rescued me from Mabel, I told the 
Queen about it, and asked if I could bring you. And 
she said that if you went on being kind to me for three 
years and a week I might bring you ; but if you once 
grew tired of me and neglected me, the three years 
and a week would have to begin all over again. You 
can’t think how 1 have been looking forward to it, dear. 
Yesterday I was able to tell the Queen that you had 
never once neglected me, and Lady Grace said the 
same. She is one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, 
and she thinks a deal of her. So the Queen said, ‘I 
shall be very glad to see such a nice little girl. Bring 
her tomorrow.’ ” 

When Wooden told her this Peggy remembered that 
she had not been quite so attentive to Wooden since 
Lady Grace had come, and wondered what would have 
happened if she had left her to sleep on the chest of 


PEGGY’S ADVENTURE BEGINS 


25 


drawers with all her clothes on that very night. It 
would have been too awful if she had had to begin the 
three years and a week all over again, after so nearly 
getting through it once. 

But Wooden did not refer to that at all, and Peggy 
felt grateful to her, and took hold of her hand and 
squeezed it. And Wooden squeezed Peggy’s hand in 
return, and smiled at her and said again, “Toyland is 
a wonderful place. I am sure you will like it.” 

When they had passed through the village Teddy 
took the road towards the sea. He drove very well, 
and talked all the time to Lady Grace, sometimes lean- 
ing towards her and saying something in his gruff, 
hearty voice, and sometimes throwing his head hack 
and laughing loudly. Lady Grace seemed to be re- 
ceiving his attentions kindly, hut Wooden looked a 
little anxious, and leant forward sometimes and joined 
in the conversation. 

“Lady Grace is engaged to Colonel Jim of the Life- 
guards,” she explained to Peggy. “The Queen takes 
a great interest in the young couple, and I promised 
her that I would give an eye to Lady Grace. The 
Queen trusts me, you know, dear.” 

“Shall I see the Queen!” asked Peggy. “What is 
she like!” 


26 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“She is not very well, ’ ’ said Wooden sadly. “I 
don’t know whether you will be able to see her, but I 
hope so.” 

“What is the matter with her?” asked Peggy. 

“Well they told me last night at the Palace that 
they were afraid she had a mump.” 

“What is that?” 

“Why, you know all about that, don’t you? You 
have had mumps yourself — several of them. If a doll 
has more than one it is generally fatal. But I quite 
hope that the Queen has not got any; and if she is 
better I am sure she would like to see you. You asked 
what she was like. Well, she is wax, of course, and 
she is about a hundred years old, or perhaps a thou- 
sand, or a million, but quite as beautiful as ever. She 
was one of the first wax dolls ever born, and they made 
her Queen because they admired her so.” 

“Is there an elective monarchy in Toyland?” asked 
Peggy, who had got on quite a long way in history. 

Wooden did not seem to understand the question 
fully, but she answered in her soothing voice, “No, 
dear, all the animals are tame ; you need not be afraid 
of any of them.” 

They drove on towards the sea, and when they got 


PEGGY’S ADVENTURE BEGINS 27 

within sight of it Peggy cried out, and clapped her 
hands with pleasure. 

For the sea was full of boats crowded with dolls 
all going to the Island. It was the prettiest sight. 
There were hundreds of toy yachts with their white 
sails, steam-boats and motor-boats and clockwork boats 
and rowing boats, and even boats made of paper, and 
walnut shells. The sun was shining brightly on this 
gay scene, and the water was as calm as possible, so 
that there was no chance of anybody being seasick. 

“ Why, they are all going over to the Island !” said 
Peggy. “Are we going there, too?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Wooden. “The Island is Toyland; 
I forgot that you didn’t know that. That is where 
all the dolls live. Those who are finished with your 
world live there always, and the others go there every 
night. At least it is night with you, but of course it 
is day with us. And when it is day with you it is night 
with us.” 

“Like Australia,” suggested Peggy. 

“Yes, dear,” said Wooden. “I like it very much.” 

“But if you go to Toyland every night, and it is 
day there, you never have any real night at all, ’ ’ said 
Peggy. 


28 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“No, dear,” said Wooden reflectively. “I suppose 
not.” 

When they reached the shore Teddy turned to the 
right. “Are we going to the Bungalow?” asked 
Peggy. 

“That is where we shall set sail for Toyland,” said 
Wooden. “And, you know, I have two relations 
there.” 

Peggy could not think what she meant for the mo- 
ment. Then she remembered the two wooden figure- 
heads, and asked Wooden if they were her relations. 
Wooden said they were. One was her mother and one 
was her aunt. “I’m sure you will like mother, 
dear,” she said. “Aunt has wonderful high spirits, 
and doesn’t always behave as she ought, through 
picking up sailors’ ways. But she says herself she 
never did no harm to nobody, so we must overlook 
it.” 

It was well that Wooden had given Peggy this warn- 
ing about her aunt, or Peggy might have been rather 
surprised at her behaviour when the car drew up be- 
fore the grass-plot by the Bungalow. The two figure- 
heads, now full length and moving about freely, were 
waiting for them, and when she saw them coming 
Wooden’s aunt gave a loud screech and rushed for- 


PEGGY'S ADVENTURE BEGINS 29 

ward to meet them, but caught her foot on a root of 
gorse and fell full length in front of the car. 

Teddy very cleverly stopped the car at once, or he 
might have run over her. Then he jumped down and 
lifted up Wooden's aunt, who was not hurt at all, but 
screeched with laughter again. Teddy seized her 
round the waist and waltzed up and down the grass 
with her, kicking up his legs and being very silly. 
Peggy was surprised to see him going on like that, but 
Wooden's aunt seemed to enjoy it thoroughly, and 
when he had finished she sat plump down on the grass, 
with her legs sticking out in front of her, and simply 
roared with laughter, and said, “ Lawks! you are a 
one!" 

In the meantime Wooden had introduced Peggy to 
her mother, who was as fresh as paint could make her, 
but had a weather-beaten look, too, and a husky voice, 
owing to her having taken so many sea voyages that 
the fog had got into her throat. She said that she was 
very pleased to see Peggy, because she had heard a 
lot about her, and when they got on to the boat they 
must have a nice long talk. 

“Aunt seems in very good spirits today, mother," 
said Wooden, looking at her doubtfully as she was be- 
ing danced about the grass by Teddy. Wooden's aunt 


30 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


was really being rather common, and Wooden would 
not like Peggy to think that her relations were com- 
mon. 

Just at that moment Wooden’s aunt sat down on 
the grass in the rather vulgar way already described, 
and Wooden’s mother said to her sharply, “Now, 
Polly, do adone now, and remember what company 
you’re in. Get up, and come and be introduced to the 
little lady.” 

So Wooden’s aunt came and shook hands with Peggy, 
and gave her a smacking kiss, which tasted of salt. 
“Dear little precious! Bless her!” she said in quite 
a kind voice, which made Peggy like her a little better. 
“Lawks, Maria! She ain’t one to mind a body hav- 
ing a bit o’ fun.” 



Ill 


THE ROYAL ARK AND THE BAD BEHAVIOUR OF WOODEN^ 
AUNT 

Lying tied to one of the groins, which seemed to have 
widened out into a sort of pier, was a rakish-looking 
clockwork steamer, with a red hull and a broad white 
line above it, all very smart and clean. 

“Why, it's my very own steamer / 9 cried Peggy, 
“just as it was when it was new, only much bigger.” 

“Yes, dear,” said Wooden. “We use it every 
night to take us across to Toyland. You didn’t know 
that. You will see all your other toys when we get 
across, and some of them are coming with us.” 

“Is the man who shoots pennies into my money-box 
coming?” asked Peggy. 

“Yes,” replied Wooden. “He is the Queen’s head 
game-keeper. He shot the three china hares that 
stand on the nursery mantelpiece. He shot them with 
the sixpences you got out of the Christmas pudding.” 

The steamer and the pier beside it were now crowded 
with doll sailors and doll passengers preparing to take 

31 


32 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


the journey across the water to Toyland, and the road 
along the beach in both directions was full of dolls 
hurrying to the various starting-places. Every row 
of piles along the shore had turned into a pier, and 
scores of boats were moored alongside them, in which 
dolls were embarking. 

But still they came, from north, east, and west. 
Many of them were in motor-cars, others were packed 
into wooden carts, the babies were being wheeled in 
prams, and many were walking. Some way off Peggy 
saw a troop of lead soldiers riding down to the shore 
on black horses, and they looked very fine with the sun 
shining on their helmets and breastplates. 

Lady Grace shaded her eyes and looked at them, too, 
and Wooden said to her, “Lady Grace, I believe that 
is Colonel Jim’s regiment.’ ’ 

Teddy turned round and grinned at them, and said, 
“What ho, girls !” 

Wooden said sharply, “Now behave, Teddy, and 
don’t let’s have any byplay.” 

They all embarked in the toy steamer, and Peggy 
was pleased to find -her own sailor doll acting as cap- 
tain of it. Very well he did it, too, standing on the 
bridge and shouting his orders down a tube, while 
the steamer was loosed from the quay and started off 


THE ROYAL ARK AND WOODEN’S AUNT 33 


at a splendid pace, making a hundred knots an hour 
across the blue calm water. 

It was a delightful voyage, pleasanter even than 



the motor drive had been. The sun was shining so 
brightly, and every one seemed so pleased to be going 
to Toyland. They could hear the dolls laughing and 
singing from the other boats, which were all round 




34 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


them. On one of them was a toy piano with five notes, 
on which a gentleman doll with long hair was playing 
a tune so difficult that you would never have thought 
it possible if you had not heard him. 

Wooden’s mother and aunt went forward and 
stood in the bows of the boat as she drove across the 
sea. They sniffed the salt breeze with rapture, and 
their brightly-coloured faces glistened in the sun- 
shine. 4 ‘This,” said Wooden’s mother, “is Life!” 
And Wooden’s aunt enjoyed it so much that until they 
came to the other side she said nothing vulgar or com- 
mon. 

But the moment the steamer began to move, although 
the water was as smooth as it could possibly be, Teddy 
became as green as pea soup and rushed downstairs 
to the cabin. 

“He’s always like that, poor fellow,” said Wooden. 
“I suppose it comes from being a bear. He will be 
all right when we get to the other side. ’ ’ 

Very soon the voyage was over, and the toy steamer 
came alongside a quay carpeted with red felt. There 
were many other landing stages all along the shore, at 
which other boats were landing their doll passengers; 
but the steamer was the only one which came alongside 
this special quay. It was decorated with flowers and 


THE ROYAL ARK AND WOODEN’S AUNT 35 


flags, and round it stood a row of wooden soldiers, with 
shiny black bearskins, red coats, and spotless white 
trousers. They lined three sides of the square, and 
looked very smart, all of exactly the same height, and 
all standing at attention. 

Wooden seemed to be rather embarrassed as the 
steamer made fast alongside this gaily decorated quay. 
“This is the royal quay,” she said to Peggy. “Only 
the Queen uses it. There must be some mistake.” 
And she asked the captain why they were landing 
there. 

“Orders, ma’am, orders,” said the captain briefly, 
touching his cap. 

“I expect,” said Lady Grace, “that it is to do honour 
to our little visitor.” She put her hand on Peggy’s 
shoulder and smiled at her. 

Wooden’s honest face beamed with pleasure. “Now, 
I do call that kind of Her Majesty,” she said, “very 
kind indeed.” 

The wooden soldiers all presented arms as Peggy 
stepped off the steamer between Lady Grace and 
Wooden, while Wooden’s mother and aunt followed 
them, and Teddy came up from below no longer look- 
ing green, but quite cheerful again and grinning all 
over. One of the soldiers let off his gun by mistake. 


36 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


He had only lately joined the regiment, and did not 
quite understand the words of command. The captain 
of the wooden soldiers boxed his ears soundly, and no- 
body took any further notice of the episode, which, 
however, had far-reaching effects, as will presently 
appear. 

Directly the party had landed, a band struck up and 
led the way along a broad carpeted passage, which 
was also lined on one side by wooden soldiers. On 
the other side was the water, for the royal quay was 
at the mouth of a broad river, and a little farther on 
was another quay towards which they were going. 
And here Peggy saw an extraordinary and pleasing 
sight. 

There was a large, gaily decorated Noah’s Ark lying 
at the second quay. At each end of the house on the 
Ark was a big platform. The one in front was shaded 
by a gaily striped awning. There was also a carpet 
on it, and big pots of flowers, and comfortable chairs 
and little tables. On the platform at the back stood 
Mr. Noah in a long yellow robe, and Mrs. Noah in a 
blue robe. Mr. Noah had taken off his black shiny hat, 
and was bowing low, as Wooden and her party ap- 
proached the Ark. 

But the most curious thing of all was the long line 




38 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


of animals that were standing two and two along the 
towing-path by the river. They were all in charge 
of the rest of Mr. Noah’s family, and were harnessed 
to the Ark, which they were evidently going to pull. 
There were two elephants and two camels, giraffes, 
zebras, cows, hyenas, leopards, and a lot more, all 
much the same size ; and at the head of the procession 
were two antelopes. Hovering round the Ark were 
a great number of birds — wild geese, and rooks and 
parrots and peacocks and canaries and budgeree-gars 
and others, all flying in pairs. 

“The Queen’s own Ark,” said Lady Grace. “It 
must have been sent down for somebody. I wonder 
who.” 

“Do you think it could be for a specialist?” Peggy 
asked. “They do send for them, you know, if anybody 
is ill.” 

“Oh, I do hope her mump isn’t worse,” said 
Wooden. 

“I expect it’s sent down for me,” said Wooden’s 
aunt, with her vulgar laugh. ‘ ‘ She knowed I was com- 
ing all right.” 

“Now, Polly, behave,” said Wooden’s mother. “Mr. 
and Mrs. Noah are looking at us.” 

Mr. Noah advanced to the side of the Ark and bowed 


THE ROYAL ARK AND WOODEN’S AUNT 39 


to Wooden. “I have been ordered to bring the Ark 
down for yon and yonr party,” he said. “I hope we 
shall have a nice trip up the river. ’ ’ 

Wooden turned to Peggy with a pleased smile on 
her face. “Now that is an honour,” she said. “I am 
so pleased, dear. It is a most lovely ark inside. ’ ’ 

Then she asked Mr. Noah how the Queen was, and he 
shook his head and was just going to tell her how the 
Queen was when Wooden’s aunt gave a wild whoop, 
and picking up her skirts ran along the quay, kicking 
her feet out in front of her, and shouting, “Come on, 
girls ! Here ’s larks ! ’ ’ 

And I am sorry to say that Teddy joined her, and 
they danced up the quay together and rushed down 
the bridge from the bank to the ark, jostling each other 
and quite spoiling everything by their behaviour. 

“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Wooden’s mother in a 
vexed voice, “Really, Polly does carry on something 
awful. ’ ’ 

But Mr. Noah only laughed and said, “I like a little 
fun sometimes.” 

Then he led the way to the platform in the front of 
the ark, and Mrs. Noah walked by Peggy and said to 
her, “I like your face very much. I am sure we shall 
be friends.” 


40 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


The captain of the wooden soldiers now gave some 
words of command, and all his troops fell into their 
places ready to march alongside the ark. Mr. Noah 
blew a whistle, and his sons made themselves very 
busy unfastening ropes, pushing the ark out into the 
river, and getting ready to start the animals. Mr. 
Noah blew his whistle again when the ark was clear of 
the shore, and with a great deal of shouting and cheer- 
ing, the procession of animals started off, and pulled 
the ark at a good pace up the river. 

It was a very pleasant journey. The air was warm 
and the sky was blue. All the different animals that 
were pulling the ark were very interesting to look at, 
and the birds that flew in couples overhead were very 
pretty, too, and sang most melodiously. 

They had not travelled very far before a smart serv- 
ant doll in cap and apron came out of the house in the 
ark, and said, 4 4 Would you like to take a little light 
refreshment ?” 

Wooden’s aunt instantly jumped up from her chair 
and said, “I’m always ready for my grub.” Then 
she pushed in front of all the others and rushed into 
the house in the most vulgar and objectionable man- 
ner. And again, I am sorry to say, Teddy followed 
her. 


THE ROYAL ARK AND WOODEN’S AUNT 41 

Wooden blushed with annoyance at the behaviour of 
her relative, and Wooden’s mother said in an angry 
voice, "It is really too much. But please don’t think 



because she is my daughter’s aunt that she is my sis- 
ter. Quite the reverse. I wouldn’t own her. My 
poor brother married much beneath him. He was a 
wooden Scotchman of irreproachable character, out- 



42 PEGGY IN TOYLAND 

side a tobacconists shop, and a perfect gentleman in 
every way. ’ ’ 

Peggy smoothed the wounded feelings of Wooden 
and her mother, and said it didn’t matter. “I think 
I had better say a word to Teddy,” she said. “He is 
not behaving nicely.” 

“Oh, she leads him on,” said Wooden’s mother, who 
was still very much annoyed. 

“Teddy has always been flighty, for a bear,” said 
Wooden. “I haven’t liked to say anything, dear, but 
I think it would be a good thing if you were to speak 
to him. He would pay attention to you. ’ ’ 

When they got inside the house of the ark they found 
a most beautifully furnished apartment, with big win- 
dows on either side, through which the scenery on the 
banks of the river could be observed as they went 
along. 

On the table was spread a most sumptuous repast. 
There was a dish of chicken, consisting entirely of 
wishing-bones ; there was a pudding made of one gigan- 
tic chocolate cream; there were little baby bananas 
growing on a live tree in the middle of the table; 
there were sandwiches of toast and butter and water- 
cress and blackberry jam and potted prawns, all 
mixed up together in the most ingenious manner, and 


THE ROYAL ARK AND WOODEN’S AUNT 43 


very seductive to the palate; there was a birthday 
cake and a wedding cake ; there was a jelly that tasted 
of violets and another that tasted of carnations ; there 
were delicious drinks, from the sweet and comforting 
chocolate of the cold north to the iced sherbet of the 
burning south; there were dozens of crackers, and 
every one of them contained a beautiful toy, a motto, 
a cap of coloured paper decorated with gold and silver, 
and a small but valuable piece of jewellery. In short, 
there was every delicacy of the season, and all in the 
utmost profusion. 

Wooden’s aunt was already deep in the repast when 
they got inside. She was purple in the face, and be- 
ginning to breathe heavily. 

‘ 4 Such greed I never saw,” said Wooden’s mother, 
eyeing her severely. “She has not even washed her 
hands.” 

Teddy, however, was nowhere to be seen, and the 
servant-doll said that he had.gone out by another door 
into Mr. Noah’s cabin. Mr. Noah had invited him to 
have a steak and onions with him. Peggy was rather 
glad not to have to rebuke him before company, for she 
was fond of Teddy. She thought that if he were kept 
away from Wooden’s aunt he would probably behave 
all right. 


44 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


The servant-doll had led them into a nice airy bed- 
room, which opened out of the main saloon, and Peggy 
washed her hands, and then put on a very pretty pina- 
fore made of lace and chiffon, which the servant-doll 
gave her. When they were all ready they went into 
the saloon and sat down at the table, and much en- 
joyed their repast, while the ark was drawn rapidly 
along the winding river. 

Unfortunately their enjoyment was marred by the 
continued bad behaviour of Wooden’s aunt, who went 
on as if she had really never been in respectable com- 
pany before. When she could eat no more — and that 
was not for a long time — Wooden’s mother gave her 
a dose of Gregory powder, which she always carried 
about with her for such emergencies, or she would 
probably have died. As it was she felt very ill, and 
said so in a thoroughly vulgar manner. 

Wooden was most distressed at her behaviour, but 
she was so kind-hearted that she could not help making 
excuses for her. “ Greediness and vulgarity and van- 
ity are her only failings, poor thing,” she said. 
“ Otherwise she has a very charming character. We 
all have our little weaknesses, and we must not think 
too much of them. ’ ’ 

“I’m ashamed of her,” said Wooden’s mother. 


THE ROYAL ARK AND WOODEN’S AUNT 45 


“And I shall tell her so to her face directly she regains 
consciousness.” 

For Wooden’s aunt was now stretched on one of the 
luxurious sofas of the saloon in a state of complete 
collapse. 

“Let us leave her there,” said Lady Grace. “She 
will be better when we arrive at Dolltown.” 



IV 


MOMENTOUS NEWS IS BROUGHT BY A DUTCH DOLL 

They left Wooden’s aunt in the saloon and went on 
deck again, and seated themselves in the comfortable 
chairs under the awning, from which they could observe 
the scenery. This was very beautiful. 

They were now going through a mountain gorge. 
The river was narrow here, but deep. The mountains 
came steeply down into the water, and on one side of 
the river was a road cut in the rock, along which all 
the animals were walking two by two, pulling the ark 
at a smart pace. Perched up on the mountains here 
and there were pretty wooden Swiss chalets, large and 
small; and numberless clean wooden cows, with bells 
round their necks, were browsing in the mountain pas- 
tures, which were gay with flowers. The wooden peas- 
ants w r ho were looking after them showed great inter- 
est in the progress of the ark. They came running 
down the steep paths to see who was on board, and 
shouted and waved their hats in their excitement. 

By-and-by they had passed through the mountains, 

46 


' o 



the mountains here and there were pretty wooden Swiss 
chalets 
47 


48 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


and had come to a perfectly flat country, planted with 
wooden poplars of a vivid green. Here and there 
were farms — dear little wooden houses with doll-farm- 
ers living in them, and taking care of more wooden 
animals, cows and horses, and sheep and pigs. After 
a time they came to a small town consisting of streets 
of dolls’ houses, with a church built of toy bricks. 

“Oh, I would like to go into one of those dear little 
houses, ’ ’ said Peggy. 4 ‘ Can ’t we stop here, W ooden 1 ’ ’ 
“We shall see much better dolls’ houses than those 
when we get to Dolltown,” said Wooden. “I have 
got a very nice dolls’ house myself, bigger than any 
of those. I shall take you there, dear, and you will 
occupy the spare room. And I will show you the 
Queen ’s Palace, which is finer than any of them. ’ ’ 

At this moment Mrs. Noah came forward, and stood 
by them smiling, as if she would like a little conversa- 
tion. 

“Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Noah?” said Lady Grace 
politely; and Mrs. Noah thanked her and sat down. 

Mrs. Noah was a large smiling woman who liked to 
make friends. She smiled at Lady Grace, and Wooden, 
and Wooden’s mother, and Peggy, and then said sud- 
denly, “I thought you’d like to know how it all was.” 
Of course they would like to know how it all was, 


NEWS BROUGHT BY A DUTCH DOLL 49 


though they didn’t quite know what she meant. So 
they smiled back at her, and then she began. 

“Of course he is wood,” she said, “begging your par- 
don, Lady Grace, and I ought to like him on that ac- 
count. But the truth is that I don’t, and can’t.” 

There was a little pause, and then Wooden’s mother 
said, nodding her head wisely, “Ah, I know who you 
mean, and I don’t much like him either. I suppose be- 
cause he’s a foreigner.” 

Wooden shook her head, but said nothing. Lady 
Grace said, “I hate him; but then I’m wax, you see.” 

Peggy wondered who they were talking about, but 
just as she was going to ask Wooden, Mrs. Noah looked 
at her, and said, “Why, bless me! the little lady must 
be thinking that we’re talking in riddles.” 

And then she told the following story: — 

Some time before, a ship had been wrecked on the 
coast of Toyland, and all its passengers drowned ex- 
cept King Selim. He had been brought to Dolltown, 
and, because he was a king, Queen Rosebud had given 
him a set of rooms in her palace, where he had lived 
very comfortably ever since. 

“What was he King of?” asked Peggy. 

Mrs. Noah hesitated. “I really don’t know, dear,” 
she said. “Do you know, Wooden?” 


50 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“No,” said Wooden. “I never thought of asking.” 

It seemed that nobody else had ever thought of ask- 
ing either. They knew he must be a king because he 
said he was. Besides, he wore a crown. Everybody 
was very sorry for him, because his Queen had been 
drowned when the ship had been wrecked, but when 
some time had passed and he had got over that, he had 
become rather interfering, and he was not so much 
liked now as he had been, especially by the Waxes. 
For although all the dolls in Toyland generally lived 
happily together, still there was always apt to be a 
little feeling between the Waxes and the Woodens. 
The Waxes thought the Woodens were rather com- 
mon, and the Woodens thought the Waxes were rather 
stuck up. 

“Of course, speaking for myself,” said Mrs. Noah, 
“I’ve never had no quarrel with a Wax in my life, and, 
if I may say so, have as many friends among the 
Waxes as I have among the Woodens.” 

She looked at Lady Grace, who said, “The Queen 
has always disliked having anything said against the 
Woodens, and has often told me that if she had not 
been born Wax she would have liked to be born Wood. ” 

There were murmurs of approbation at this speech, 
and Wooden’s mother said, “Wax is as wax does ? I 


NEWS BROUGHT BY A DUTCH DOLL 51 


always say. If all was as polite as the Queen, there 
wouldn’t be no trouble at all. But you haven’t told 
us about the Queen’s health yet, Mrs. Noah.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Noah, “it’s my belief that the 
Queen is dead.” 

“Dear, dear!” said Wooden’s mother. “And such 
a nice lady as she was, too. ’ ’ 

“What makes you think that, Mrs. Noah?” asked 
Lady Grace. “Surely I should have heard of it if it 
had been true.” 

“Well, perhaps you would, Lady Grace,” said Mrs. 
Noah. “Anyhow, she is alarmingly ill, and has ap- 
pointed King Selim regent, to act in her place until 
she gets better. And if she dies, King Selim is to 
reign in her place. You see, the Queen having no 
children, naturally the only other royal person in Toy- 
land has to reign instead of her.” 

“Is that the law in Toyland?” asked Peggy. 

Mrs. Noah looked at her affectionately. “Bless your 
pretty face, what questions you do ask, dear,” she 
said. “I don’t know nothing about the law, but it’s 
what King Selim says, and of course he knows, or else 
he wouldn’t say it.” 

“Oh, no,” said Wooden decisively. “Some people 
don’t like him, but he isn’t as bad as that. Was it him 


52 PEGGY IN TOYLAND 

that ordered the royal barge to meet ns, Mrs. 
Noah?” 

“Yes, it was,” said Mrs. Noah. “Now I must be 
getting back to my old man. He says there ain’t no 
flavour in his pipe unless I fill it for him.” 

“I hope the Queen isn’t really dead,” said Wooden, 
when Mrs. Noah had left them. “That would indeed 
be a sad pity. Look, dear, you can see Dolltown now. 
It won’t be long before we are there now.” 

The ark had turned a bend in the river, and Peggy 
could see across the flat plains a large town with an 
enormous tower standing in the middle of it. 

“That is the House of Cards,” said Wooden, in an- 
swer to her question. “It stands in the middle of the 
market-place, and is thirteen stories high.” 

“What is it used for?” asked Peggy. 

“It is used for going to the top of, dear,” replied 
Wooden. “You get a magnificent view of the sur- 
rounding country, and when you have looked at it you 
come down again. ’ ’ 

It was not long before they reached the outskirts of 
Dolltown. On either side of the river were rows of 
houses in which the poorer dolls, mostly wooden and 
rag, lived. The weather was warm, and many of the 
fronts of the houses stood wide open, showing the in- 


NEWS BROUGHT BY A DUTCH DOLL 53 


side of the four rooms into which each of them was 
divided. There were generally a kitchen and a din- 
ing-room on the ground floor, and a drawing-room and 
a bedroom above. None of these houses had stair- 
cases, and it was puzzling to think how the dolls could 
get into the upstairs rooms. Wooden explained, when 
Peggy asked her, that the dolls either climbed in 
through the windows, or, if the house-front was open, 
put a kitchen chair on the kitchen table, and scrambled 
up somehow. Those who were not strong enough to 
do so had to spend the night sitting on chairs in the 
kitchen or dining-room. 

“ Isn’t that rather uncomfortable for them?” asked 
Peggy. 

“Well, dear, perhaps it is rather,” said Wooden. 
“But, you see, we’re not so particular as you are, so 
we don’t feel it so much.” 

i ‘ But didn ’t you say there wasn ’t any night in Toy- 
land?” asked Peggy. 

“Perhaps, I did, dear. I say so many things in the 
course of time that I can’t possibly remember all of 
them. But there is one thing I should never do, and 
that is tell a lie.” 

Peggy looked at her quickly, fearing that she might 
be offended, but her face still wore its amiable sweet- 


54 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


tempered expression, and when Peggy gave her a kiss, 
just in case she might have said something to hurt her, 
she kissed her back, and called her a precious lamb. 

Some of the dolls’ houses that they were passing were 
quite well furnished. Others had furniture a good 
deal too large for the rooms, but the dolls seemed all 
to be of one size, and Wooden told Peggy that, how- 
ever large or small a doll might be in the nursery, 
when it got home to Toyland it became as large as life. 

All the inhabitants of these small houses came 
thronging down to the banks of the river to see the 
procession of animals, and to cheer the royal ark as it 
passed along. Peggy noticed that the wooden dolls 
cheered more heartily than the wax dolls and china 
dolls and composition dolls. In fact one party of 
Dutch dolls became so excited as the ark passed that 
they all fell into the river, and had to be rescued by 
Mr. Noah’s youngest son, who was attending to the ele- 
phants. All were got safely to land, except the father 
of the Dutch doll family, who swam out and clung to 
the ark, and was dragged on board by Mr. Noah him- 
self. 

Just at the moment when this was happening 
Wooden’s aunt came out of the saloon, and seemed 
highly delighted at the scene. She bent down and 


NEWS BROUGHT BY A DUTCH DOLL 55 

slapped her knees with both her hands, and then threw 
her head back and roared with laughter. 

“ Lawks! I wouldn’t have missed that for any- 
thing,” she said, when the Dutch doll had been led be- 
low. “Well, I’ve had a nice little nap, girls, and now 
I ’ve come to cheer you all up a bit . 9 9 



“Then behave yourself, do, Polly,” said Wooden’s 
mother severely, “and don’t let’s have any more of 
your carryings on. ’ ’ 

When the Dutch doll was quite dry he insisted upon 
being led into the presence of “the company.” Mr. 
Noah had lent him his second-best yellow robe, in which 
he looked rather funny, as it was too long for him. He 


56 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


came up the steps from the saloon, and, tripping over 
the skirt of the robe, fell flat at the feet of Wooden’s 
aunt, who roared with laughter at him again. 

So far from getting up again as quickly as possible, 
the Dutch doll remained where he was, rubbing his 
forehead on the deck of the ark. 

“Get up, man,” said Wooden’s mother sharply, 
‘ 1 and don ’t stop lying there like a silly. ’ ’ 

The Dutch doll got up, looking foolish, and bowed 
low to Wooden’s aunt. “I hope your Majesty is quite 
well,” he said. “I am very pleased to see your Maj- 
esty. ’ ’ 

“Lawks! he calls me ‘your Majesty!’ ” said 
Wooden’s aunt. “Well, I never! I shall die of laugh- 
ing if this goes on.” And indeed it seemed likely that 
she would. 

“The man’s silly,” said Wooden’s mother. “His 
ducking has turned his head. The Queen isn’t here. 
We’re only the party that the royal ark has been sent 
down for.” 

But still the Dutch doll kept on bowing to Wooden’s 
aunt, and calling her your Majesty; and Wooden’s 
aunt enjoyed it. 

Lady Grace intervened in her polite and aristocratic 
manner. t ‘ Don ’t you know Queen Rosebud by sight ? ’ ’ 


NEWS BROUGHT BY A DUTCH DOLL 57 


she asked. “In calling this lady your Majesty you are 
coming very near to telling a story. ’ 9 

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, my lady,” said the Dutch 
doll, much shocked. “Queen Rosebud is dead, you 
know. ’ ’ 

“I feared it,” said Wooden. “It is very sad.” 

Lady Grace turned pale. “She was a loving mis- 
tress and a great Queen, ’ ’ she said. 

Wooden’s mother said, “Yes, she was. But crying 
out about it won’t bring her to life again, poor thing!” 
And Wooden’s aunt had the grace to leave off 
with her nonsense, and say, “I’m sure I’m sorry to 
hear the news. Then who is going to be Queen 
now?” 

“You are, your Majesty,” said the Dutch doll, bow- 
ing to her again. “King Selim is going to marry 
you. ’ ’ 

“What, marry me!” exclaimed Wooden’s aunt, for- 
getting to be vulgar for once, in her surprise. “Well, 
I never! Why, I hardly know the gentleman.” 

“Surely you are making some mistake,” said Lady 
Grace. 

The Dutch doll looked offended. “Do you think I’d 
tell you a lie V 9 he asked. 

“Oh, no, of course he wouldn’t do that,” said 


58 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


Wooden hastily. “If he says so, of course it is so. 
But you Ye not Queen yet, aunt. ’ ’ 

“No, nor never will be, if you don’t learn to behave 
proper,” said Wooden’s mother. “If I was you I 
should keep quiet till the wedding ceremony. ’ ’ 
Wooden’s aunt seemed to think this was good advice, 
for she gave no more trouble till the ark drew up at 
the royal quay in the middle of Dolltown. 



V 


ARRIVAL AT THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 

The Royal Quay was a great open space carpeted with 
red felt, and decorated with palms and flowers. 
Wooden soldiers were standing all round the square, 
and inside it was a royal carriage with six wooden 
horses, and servants in scarlet liveries. A little troop 
of lead soldiers on black horses was drawn up by the 
carriage, and looked very gallant with their scarlet 
tunics, silver breastplates and helmets and waving 
plumes. Lady Grace blushed when she saw that the 
head of the troop was Colonel Jim, and said to Peggy, 
‘ ‘The rather nice-looking officer is a friend of mine, 
dear. I will introduce him to you when I get an oppor- 
tunity. ’ y 

Behind the wooden soldiers was a great crowd of 
dolls, all cheering themselves hoarse as the royal ark 
was being tied up by the quay, and the bridge was 
being run out. Peggy noticed that there were no wax 
dolls among them, and rather wondered at this, but had 
not time to ask about it in the excitement of the 
moment. 


59 



He had no beard, but his head was completely bald 


p 


> 


60 






THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 61 


Just by the landing stage was a little group of gen- 
tlemen dolls. The most important person in it was an 
old gentleman doll of patriarchal aspect. He had no 
beard, but his head was completely bald, and he was 
dressed in a long gown of black velvet. As soon as 
the bridge between the quay and the ark was put into 
position, he came forward with his party on to the plat- 
form of the ark, and bowed low before Wooden, who 
happened to be standing a little in front of the rest. 

“Welcome, your Majesty,” he said, “to the Capital 
of your kindom of Toyland. I will explain why I thus 
address you later.” 

Wooden was quite taken back, and could only stam- 
mer out, “But Mr. — Mr. — I don’t know your name, 
but ” 

“My name is Norval,” said the old gentleman doll. 
“And I am the Lord Chancellor of your Majesty’s 
kingdom. ’ ’ 

“But why do you call me your Majesty, Mr. Nor- 
val ?” asked Wooden. 

“ Lord Norval, at your Majesty’s pleasure,” cor- 
rected the Lord Chancellor. “I address you as a 
Queen because King Selim, successor to our late la- 
mented Queen Rosebud, has intimated his intention of 
marrying you, and in these matters I feel that one can- 


62 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


not begin too soon. Besides, it is bis Majesty’s pleas- 
ure that you should be paid every possible honour, as 
his highly respected bride to be.” 

“But Lord Noodle!” stammered Wooden, getting 
his name a little wrong in her perplexity, “this gentle- 
man said that it was my aunt here that the king wanted 
to marry.” 

She indicated the Dutch doll, and the Lord Chan- 
cellor looked at him in anger. “Did you say that!” 
he asked. 

Wooden’s aunt broke in before the Dutch doll could 
speak. “Yes, he did say it,” she said. “And I ain’t 
going to give up my Selim for nobody. Him and me 
has always been friendly like, and I wasn’t a bit sur- 
prised to hear he wanted to marry me. Why should 
he want to marry a young thing like Wooden, I should 
like to know? Why she’s like a kid beside of him! 
It’s me that’s going to be Queen, not her.” 

“Captain Cook,” said the Lord Chancellor to a lead 
soldier of his party, “arrest this Dutchman for telling 
a lie, and arrest this woman for telling another.” 

‘ ‘ What, me!” cried W ooden ’s aunt. 4 ‘ How dare you 
accuse me of telling a lie, you old creature with a head 
like an egg? How dare you? What lie have I 
told?” 


THE EOYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 63 


“ Arrest her again for insulting the Lord Chancel- 
lor,’ J said Lord Norval. “You said you were going 
to be Queen, and that’s a lie. King Selim wouldn’t 
look at you. He has confided to me that he has been 
in love with — with — I suppose I had better say Princess 
Wooden, for some time, and has reason to believe that 
she is not indifferent to him.” 

“Well, he has looked at me sometimes,” said 
Wooden, “but I’m sure I never gave him any encour- 
agement. I don’t like him very much, Lord Noodle. 
He’s a foreigner, you see, and I don’t like foreigners. 
Couldn’t it be arranged for him to marry my aunt, as 
she’s ready for him? I’d rather it was her than me.” 

The Lord Chancellor looked muddled. “I couldn’t 
say anything without consulting his Majesty,” he said. 
“He might consent ; but then again he might not. The 
best way will be for us all to go up to the Palace, as 
already ordered, and ask him. I am sorry your aunt 
will have to appear there under arrest, but as she has 
committed a crime, or rather two crimes, that can’t 
be helped.” 

The situation was certainly awkward. Nobody quite 
seemed to know what to do about it. But Peggy, who 
had been listening with great interest to what had been 
said, ventured to make a suggestion. “If Wooden’s 


64 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


aunt does marry the King,” she said, “then she 
wouldn’t have told a story, would she?” 

Everybody brightened up, and the Lord Chancellor 
said, “That is one of the cleverest things I ever heard 
said. But who is this ingenious and attractive-looking 
young lady, may I ask?” 

Wooden explained to him who Peggy was, and he 
bowed low to her, and said he was proud to make her 
acquaintance. “Well, after what you have pointed 
out,” he said, “I have no difficulty in unarresting this 
lady for telling a lie. But she has also insulted a high 
official. She said that my head was like an egg. It 
may be or it may not be, but nobody could say that it 
was a polite thing to point out.” 

He looked at Peggy as if he expected her to make an- 
other suggestion, and would not be sorry if she made 
it. 

Peggy could think of nothing better to say than, “I 
like eggs myself, especially if they are new-laid. ’ ’ 

The Lord Chancellor caught at this instantly. “Did 
you have a new-laid egg in your mind when you re- 
ferred to my head, Madam?” he asked of Wooden’s 
aunt. 

Wooden’s aunt, who was looking much more subdued 
than usual, standing by the officer who had arrested 


THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 65 


her, said, “Well, there ’s one thing I never would do, 
and that’s tell a lie. I can’t rightly say that I had a 
new-laid egg in my mind, because I won’t deceive you, 
I don’t know where my mind is. I went to sea early, 
and never had much schooling, and never learnt no 
physiognomy. There may be a new-laid egg in my 
mind, or there may not. I wouldn’t like to say.” 

“What I would suggest to you, madam,” said the 
Lord Chancellor, “is that in likening my head to an 
egg you didn’t mean an old-laid egg, or an addled 
egg, or a bad egg, or anything of that sort. If it is 
like an egg at all, it was a fresh egg you meant.” 

“Oh, lawks, yes,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I’d never 
be one for insulting a gentleman. I know what’s due 
to myself and my family better.” 

“Then that is quite enough for me,” said the Lord 
Chancellor, evidently greatly relieved. ‘ 1 Captain Cook, 
unarrest this lady completely.” 

“And the Dutch doll, too,” said Peggy, pleased at 
having succeeded so well. 

“And the Dutch doll, too, of course, Captain Cook,” 
said the Lord Chancellor. “And my advice to you, sir, 
is to make yourself scarce. You have had a narrow 
escape, and let it be a lesson to you.” 

The Dutch doll, whose knees had been knocking to- 


66 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 



y 


gether with fright, picked up the skirts of Mr. Noah’s 
second-best yellow robe, and ran away as fast as he 
could. He poked in between two of the wooden sol- 



THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 67 

diers guarding the quay, and was lost in the crowd. 
But he was an honest doll, for the next morning Mr. 
Noah received back his second-best robe by parcel’s 
post, with a note of thanks, which he could not read, 
as it was written in double-Dutch. 

The party was now ready to land and get into the 
royal carriage, but just as they had stepped off on to 
the red carpet on the quay, the Lord Chancellor’s eyes 
fell upon Lady Grace, whom he seemed not to have 
noticed before. 

His face darkened, and he said, “Why, what is this? 
A wax doll at large, after the royal proclamation that 
all Waxes are to be imprisoned! Captain Cook, do 
your duty instantly.” 

Captain Cook stepped forward to arrest Lady Grace, 
who shrank away from him, while Wooden and her 
mother and aunt began to protest volubly against such 
an outrage, for they were all friendly to Lady Grace, 
who had always treated them with perfect politeness. 

Peggy felt dreadfully frightened at the moment at 
all the hubbub, and at the idea of poor Lady Grace 
being taken off to prison; but just as she was trying 
to think what she could do to stop it there was an un- 
expected diversion. Colonel Jim, the officer in charge 
of the Life Guards standing by the royal carriage, rode 


68 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


forward with a clatter of harness and accoutrements, 
and said in a loud voice, “Unhand that lady!” 

There was a moment’s pause. Then the Lord Chan- 
cellor said, “Colonel Jim, you are taking a great deal 
upon yourself. You know what the royal proclama- 
tion was. All Waxes are to be arrested and sent to 
prison.” 

“What for?” asked Colonel Jim, with soldierly 
brevity. 

“The general charge against them,” said the Lord 
Chancellor, “is giving themselves airs.” 

“Has Lady Grace ever given herself airs?” asked 
Colonel Jim. 

“No, that she never has,” said Wooden’s mother 
indignantly. “I will say this for her, Wax or no Wax, 
that a nicer-spoken or nicer-behaved lady never stept.” 

“And she was a great favourite of Queen Rosebud’s, 
besides,” said Wooden. “She thought the world of 
her.” 

And even Wooden’s aunt showed up well in the emer- 
gency. “If I’m to be Queen,” she said, “I shall have 
Lady Grace as my own lady-in-waiting. She shall put 
in my hairpins for me, which I never could do rightly 
myself. And how’s she to do that if she’s in prison?” 

Colonel Jim rode back to his troop without saying 


THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 69 


another word. But his interference had been success- 
ful, for the Lord Chancellor said, 4 4 Under the circum- 
stances, I will not have Lady Grace arrested now. She 
can come with us to the Palace, and we will see what 
the King has to say about it.” 

Then Wooden and her mother and aunt, and Lady 
Grace and Peggy got into the royal carriage, and the 
Lord Chancellor and his suite got into two other car- 
riages. Colonel Jim and his Life Guardsmen formed 
themselves on either side, and with a clash and a glit- 
ter, the little procession started. The wooden soldiers 
all presented arms, and made a way through for them, 
and they drove off the quay and into the streets of 
Dolltown. 

Peggy had been rather surprised that the dolls had 
not shown more grief at the sudden death of the Queen, 
though all of them had certainly spoken very nicely 
about it when the news had first come to them, and were 
evidently sorry that she had died. But she now began 
to understand that dolls do not take things in quite 
the same way as human beings. For one thing, there 
were no signs of mourning in the streets, but on the 
other hand there were flags on some of the houses, and 
all the people seemed to be out of doors watching for 
the royal procession, and when it appeared they 


70 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


cheered heartily, and seemed as happy and pleased as 
possible. This was all the more remarkable because, 
if what the Lord Chancellor had said was true, which 
of course it was, as he would never have told a lie, all 
the wax dolls in the place had already been sent off to 
prison, and you might have thought that that would 
have sobered the rest. But even the four dolls in the 
carriage seemed to have forgotten it, and also the un- 
pleasant episode of Lady Grace nearly being taken off 
to prison, too. They were all anxious to point out to 
Peggy the interesting sights to be seen on either side 
of them, and had nothing to say about anything else, 
not even about what might happen when they arrived 
at the royal palace. And as they seemed able to for- 
get everything but the pleasure and interest of the 
moment, Peggy was able to do so, too. 

What she saw of Dolltown enchanted her. It was 
like all the toys she had ever had, and her friends had 
had, and she had seen in shop-windows, all become real, 
and not only that, but of a size to be used. All little 
girls know what it is to wish that they could sometimes 
live in their own dolls’ houses, especially in the big 
ones, where there are staircases that they could go up 
and down if only they were of the right size, and all 
sorts of nice furniture, and dinner-sets and tea-sets, 


THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 71 

and other things which they would like to use them- 
selves and not always be making believe with. Well, 
in Dolltown, and in fact in the whole of Toyland, there 
was no making believe. Everything was as real as 
real, even the smallest things for the smallest dolls. 
Peggy could have used everything she saw herself, and 
it was really quite thrilling and delightful to feel that 
she could pretend to be a doll if she wanted to, and 
have all the fun for herself that little girls give to their 
dolls. 

Just outside the royal quay was a large station, with 
platforms and signal boxes and bridges and lines of 
rails all complete, and a train waiting there with a 
bright green clockwork engine, ready to go off into 
the country. One of Peggy’s boy cousins had col- 
lected a splendid railway plant — his relations always 
gave him things for it at Christmas and on his birth- 
days — and Peggy had often wished she could go for a 
ride in it all round his playroom floor, and be shunted 
and go under the little tunnels, and stop at the sta- 
tions, just as the tin soldiers he put into the carriages 
did. Well, it would be just as much fun going in this 
railway system, and she could get into the toy carriages 
just as easily as her cousin’s tin soldiers. 

They crossed over the river on one of those suspen- 


72 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


sion bridges that you see in shop windows, and then 
climbed a hill into the town. At the beginning of the 
hill was a large toy fort, crammed with tin soldiers, 
who were looking over the parapet and cheering them 
as they passed. 

Then they went through a street of shops, and the 
joints of meat hanging in the butchers ’ shops, and the 
fish lying on the slabs of the fishmongers ’ shops, and 
the stores in the grocery shops were all real ; and spe- 
cially attractive were the highly-coloured fruits. 

As for the shops where they sold the baby-clothes, 
they were too delightful. But the first one they passed 
brought a most disturbing thought to Peggy. She 
turned to Wooden and said, “Oh, Wooden, dear, where 
are all the long-clothes babies? Surely they haven’t 
been cruel enough to send them to prison, too ! ’ ’ 

“Oh, no, dear,” said Wooden decidedly. “Nobody 
is cruel in Toyland.” 

Peggy did not feel quite so sure of that, considering 
that Lady Grace had nearly been sent to prison already 
for being wax; and of course most long-clothes babies 
are wax, or composition. “Then where are they?” 
she asked. 

“They are all having their morning sleep, dear,” 
said Wooden’s mother, and Peggy had to be content. 


THE ROYAL PALACE OF DOLLTOWN 73 


When they reached the more important streets of 
Dolltown, most of the houses were built of wooden or 
terra-cotta bricks, and very fine some of them were. 
But this part of the town was rather silent and de- 
serted, for the owners of most of the fine houses were 
wax, and they had all been taken off to prison. 

At last they reached the royal palace. It was a most 
gorgeous building, built of ivory, with windows made 
of enormous diamonds and rubies and emeralds and 
sapphires, all glittering in the sun. 

The carriages drew up underneath an ivory porch. 
The Lord Chancellor was at the door of the royal one 
as soon as it was opened. “I will conduct you straight 
to his Majesty,” he said. 



VI 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 

They were led through several magnificent ivory halls, 
with a great many looking-glasses in them but scarcely 
any furniture, and into the great Hall of Audience, 
where there was a lovely ivory throne on a dais at one 
end, and on either side of the Hall a row of ivory 
chairs. 

Here Peggy had two great surprises. 

The first surprise was the new King, who was sit- 
ting on the throne. Directly she saw him, Peggy ex- 
claimed, 4 4 Why, he’s a White Chess King!” 

And so he was, though none of the dolls seemed to 
know it. His crown was on his head, and he had a 
face underneath it, which chess kings don’t have, and, 
although he was wood himself, his robes did not appear 
to be. But there was no doubt about his being a chess 
king, in spite of these differences, and the moment she 
saw him Peggy had the feeling that he ought not to 
be King of Toyland, for he wasn’t a real doll that chil- 
dren play with, but only part of a game for grown-ups. 

74 





75 


i|L£31! 





76 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


The King was sitting on his throne when they came 
into the Hall, and standing by his side on the dais was 
a lady doll. And this was Peggy’s second surprise. 
For the lady doll was no other than Rose, who had once 
been her own doll — the one she had given to Mabel in 
exchange for Wooden. 

Now, as we know, Peggy had never really loved 
Rose; she had tried to, but had not succeeded. But 
she had not come to dislike her in any way, and had 
kissed her affectionately when she had given her up to 
Mabel, and told her that she would come to see her 
sometimes. And she had done this now and then, until 
Mabel’s father had left the village shortly afterwards, 
and taken Mabel and Rose with him. 

But now, directly she set eyes on Rose again, and 
recognized her, Peggy felt that she did dislike her. 
She looked very proud, for one thing, and pride is not 
a quality that becomes anybody, least of all dolls, who 
are generally free from it. She also looked bad-tem- 
pered, and that again is a fault from which dolls are 
usually free. The only point to admire about her was 
her good looks, but as Peggy had never been able to 
love her because of them when she had been her own 
doll they did not recommend her now. Peggy felt once 
for all that she had been quite right in not liking Rose, 


KING SELIM HOLDS AX AUDIENCE 77 

and also felt that it would be impossible ever to like 
her. 

But we must get on. Directly the party introduced 
by the Lord Chamberlain made its appearance at the 
door of the Hall of Audience, the King rose from his 
throne. As they advanced up the Hall, he stepped 
down from the dais, and approaching Wooden, bowed 
to her in a stately but somewhat foreign fashion, and 
took her hand. Then he said with great respect, 
“Madame, our wedding will take place in half an hour, 
and our coronation half an hour after that. I wish to 
get both ceremonies over before tea-time.” 

He spoke in an imperious way, and although there 
was a sort of smile on his face as he looked at Wooden, 
showing that she was dear to him, it was not altogether 
a pleasant smile; nor did King Selim seem to Peggy 
an agreeable person. He was tall and fat and ugly, 
and looked as if he ate and drank too much. 

Wooden was taken aback by the suddenness of the 
proposal. And no wonder! It must be remembered 
that she hardly knew King Selim, and had had no idea 
until half an hour before of anything in the nature of 
a marriage with him. And, although he had smiled at 
her, he had not uttered a word of love, nor even asked 
if she wanted to marry him or not. No lady would 


78 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


like a gentleman simply to tell her that he was going 
to marry her in half an hour, even if the gentleman 
was a King. 

“I don’t know, your Majesty,” she said hesitatingly. 
“Of course it’s a great honour you’re doing me. But 
I haven’t thought of such a thing, and — and ” 

The Lord Chancellor stepped forward and bowed to 
the King. “Your Majesty,” he said. “I am em- 
powered by this lady to make a suggestion to you. 
Would it he the same to your Majesty if you were to 
marry the lady’s aunt instead of her? She has the 
advantage of being wood, and of possessing consid- 
erable personal attractions. Wooden’s Aunt, kindly 
step forward, and display those attractions to his 
Majesty.” 

Wooden’s aunt stepped forward, dropped a curtesy 
to the King, and smirked. 

The King’s face darkened, and he was about to 
speak, when Rose, who was still standing by the throne 
on the dais, interrupted. “Your Majesty,” she said, 
“this woman is not at all suitable for the purpose that 
has been suggested. She lives in the same part of the 
country over there as I used to, and I know all about 
her. She is quite a common woman — I believe she was 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 79 


once a sort of stewardess on a ship — and, if I may so 
express myself, it is like her impudence to think of 
marrying your Majesty.” 

W ooden ’s aunt bridled. < 1 And who are you, I should 
like to know,” she burst out, “to call me common? 
Common yourself ! I dare say you think yourself very 
grand now, talking to a Majesty, but I’ve seen you 
dressed in dirty pink flannelette, and held head-down- 
wards by one foot, over there. So there now, Miss 
Superior ! Common, indeed ! I ’ll learn you ! ’ ’ 

From these two speeches, Peggy understood that 
when dolls in Toyland talked about the world of real 
people they called it “over there.” 

“Peace, woman!” ordered the King in an angry 
voice. “How dare you make a brawl in my royal 
palace!” 

Wooden’s aunt was affected by the majesty of his 
demeanour, which was certainly that of a King, though 
not perhaps of a good king. She shrank back, and 
Selim went on: “I have no idea, of marrying this 
woman, Norval, and I wonder at your suggesting such 
a thing. But before we talk about that I should like 
to know how it comes about that a wax doll is brought 
into my presence, when I have given orders that all 


80 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


Waxes are to be imprisoned. And I should also like 
to know who this human child is, and how she comes 
here. It looks to me very much like prying.’ ’ 

King Selim had very bushy eyebrows, and he bent 
them with a terrific frown upon Peggy and Lady Grace, 
as he spoke. 

Lady Grace shrank back, evidently frightened by 
Selim’s anger. But Peggy wasn’t frightened at all. 
She knew somehow that she had nothing to fear from 
a chess king, however angrily he might look at her. 
She even thought that she might be able to do some- 
thing to save Lady Grace, if the King tried to punish 
her for being wax. But at present she thought she had 
better keep quiet, and see what happened. 

The Lord Chancellor did not seem to be frightened 
of the new King either. He said, in a chatty sort of 
way, “Now those are both very interesting questions, 
your Majesty, and I shall be delighted to discuss them 
with you. Then there ’s the question of your marriage 
to be decided, and several other little matters, which 
will give us quite an agreeable discussion, if we take 
them one by one. What I say is, let’s have an Au- 
dience. ’ ’ 

The King stepped back on to the dais and whispered 
to Rose, who shrugged her shoulders and looked dis- 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 81 


agreeable, but did not seem to be able to object to the 
proposal. 

4 4 Very well,” said the King, seating himself on his 
throne. 4 4 We ’ll have an Audience. ’ ’ 

The Lord Chancellor seemed pleased at the idea of 
an Audience. 4 4 Bring in the W oolsack, ’ ’ he said to the 
royal servant dolls, who were standing round the dais ; 
and two of them went out, and came back with a large 
sack of wool, which they placed in the middle of the 
Hall. The Lord Chancellor took his seat on it, facing 
the throne, but it was so soft that he fell back into it, 
and it covered him up so completely that only two little 
thin legs could be seen sticking into the air. But the 
two royal servants quickly rescued him, and sat him 
in the middle of the sack, which bulged up all round 
him. He laughed in a very good-humoured way at his 
mishap, and said, 4 4 Now the rest of you take your seats, 
please, and then we ’ll begin. ’ ’ 

All the company sat down on the ivory chairs on 
either side of the Hall, except Rose, who still stood at 
the right of the King on his throne. 

4 4 Now we must have everything quite in order,” said 
the Lord Chancellor cheerfully. 44 I don’t know who 
the lady is standing by his Majesty. I’ve nothing to 
say against her whatever. In fact, I’m sure she will 


82 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


be of great assistance to ns in onr important delibera- 
tions. But I should like her to take her place with the 
rest, please.” 

“I am advising his Majesty on behalf of the Com- 
position dolls, ’ 9 said Rose hastily. ‘ 6 It is his Majesty ’s 
wish that I should keep by him. Please get on with 
the Audience, and don’t fuss.” 

“Oh, if it’s his Majesty’s wish, I’ve nothing more 
to say,” said the Lord Chancellor genially. “I only 
thought you would be more comfortable sitting down. 
Now the first thing to be done is to announce what steps 
have been taken by your Majesty for the welfare of 
the Kingdom of Toyland. Let’s have it all, please, 
from the time you received the last wishes of our dear 
lamented Queen Rosebud. ’ ’ 

The King frowned. “I don’t want to have to go 
into all that again,” he said. “I want my questions 
answered. ’ ’ 

“All in good time, your Majesty,” said the Lord 
Chancellor. “But let’s have your statement first, 
please.” 

Peggy quite expected that the King would refuse, 
and might even do something to the Lord Chancellor 
for giving him an order in that sort of way. But it 
seemed as if it was difficult for a doll to refuse to obey 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 83 


any order, if it was given with enough firmness. At 
any rate, the King obeyed this one, although he 
frowned and looked very disagreeable about it. 

“Well, if you must have it,” he said, “when the late 
lamented Queen Rosebud was nearing her end she told 
me that she wished me to reign over Toyland in her 
place.” 

“Will you kindly make a note of this?” said the 
Lord Chancellor to his secretary, who was standing 
beside him. “Take it all down in shorthand; then we 
shall know where we are. Go on, please, your Ma- 
jesty.” 

“That’s all,” said the King. “Queen Rosebud said 
I was to reign, and I’m reigning.” 

“Did his Majesty say it was raining?” asked the 
secretary. 

“No, no,” said the Lord Chancellor testily. “The 
King said he was reigning — with a ‘g.’ Keep your 
ears open, please. Well, that’s all in order, then. 
Now what about the imprisonment of all wax dolls, 
your Majesty? Let’s have that explained, please.” 

The King frowned again. “Have I got to explain 
everything I do, when I’m already King?” he asked. 

“Yes, please, your Majesty,” said the Lord Chancel- 
lor firmly. 


84 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“Well, then,” said the King, “I was given reason 
to believe that there would be a revolution among 
the Waxes, when it was known that a wooden King 



was to succeed a wax Queen, and I took steps to pre- 
vent it, that’s all.” 

“Who gave your Majesty reason to believe such a 
thing?” asked the Lord Chancellor. “I am China my- 
self, but I have always lived on good terms with Waxes 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 85 


and Woodens alike — Compositions and Rags, too, for 
the matter of that — and I believe I may say the same 
of most of the inhabitants of this happy country. I 
see no reason to believe that there would have been a 
revolution of any sort, when it was given out that 
Queen Rosebud had nominated you as her successor.” 

“Did you say that she abominated her professor ?” 
asked the secretary. “You talk so very fast.” 

The King broke in before the Lord Chancellor could 
reply. “Are you giving me a lecture?” he asked an- 
grily. 

“Yes,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Will your Ma- 
jesty kindly answer my question?” 

“No, I won’t,” said the King. “It is enough to say 
that I gave orders that if there was any trouble 
among the dolls landing from over there, a gun was 
to be fired. The gun was fired, and I ordered the 
Waxes to be locked up at once.” 

“The gun was fired by mistake,” said Wooden’s 
mother sensibly. “I saw the soldier’s ears boxed for 
firing it with my own eyes.” 

‘ ‘ Did she say she fired it with her own eyes ? ’ ’ asked 
the secretary. “She does mumble so.” 

“Mistake or no mistake,” said the King, “the gun 
was fired, and the Waxes were locked up. And now 


86 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


we Ve finished all that, I should like to know what this 
lady is doing here, when she ought to be in prison.” 

He frowned terrifically at Lady Grace, who was sit- 
ting between Peggy and Wooden. Peggy took hold 
of her hand. Although Lady Grace was grown up, 
and she was only a little girl, she felt that she must 
protect her. For after all she was her own dearly 
loved doll, and Peggy was not going to have her bullied 
by a chess king, if she could help it. 

It was Wooden who answered, in her calm, kind 
voice. ‘ ‘ Lady Grace was a favourite lady-in-waiting 
of dear Queen Rosebud,” she said. “ I think it would 
be a great pity to send her to prison, and I hope you 
won’t do it, your Majesty.” 

King Selim’s face grew softer as Wooden spoke. 
Her voice was evidently music in his ears. Perhaps he 
would have given way at once, but before he could say 
anything, Rose, who was still standing by the side of 
the throne, spoke. “It isn’t safe to leave any wax 
dolls free to go about,” she said. “They will only stir 
up trouble. Compositions are quite as good as Waxes, 
and anything that Waxes could do, such as acting as 
ladies-in-waiting to royalty, Compositions can do.” 

“You ’ re not even Composition,” broke in Wooden’s 
aunt, who had been glowering at Rose all along, and 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 87 


seemed to have forgotten her own fright. “You’re 
Composition down to the neck, and your hands and feet 
and the rest of you is stuffed rag. Yes, stuffed rag! 
So there, Sawdust!” 

The Lord Chancellor held up his hand. “That is a 
very serious accusation to bring against a lady,” he 
said. “I understood the lady, to claim that she was 
Composition. Do you mean to accuse her of telling a 
lie, madam?” 

“I’ve seen her held upside down by the leg,” said 
Wooden’s aunt. “Composition below, sawdust above. 
Deny it if you can. ’ ’ 

Rose did not deny it. She looked as if she were 
going to, but her eyes rested on Peggy, and she knew 
that Peggy knew all the truth about her. She burst 
into angry tears. “ It is most offensive to be addressed 
in that way by a vulgar creature like that,” she said. 
“Before gentlemen, too! She hasn’t got any legs at 
all, herself, over there. Nor a nose either. She’s a 
regular figure of fun. ’ ’ 

The King put out his hand to soothe her. “The first 
law I shall make, ’ ’ he said, ‘ ‘ will be that no doll in my 
dominions shall ever refer to the deficiencies of another 
doll over there, under pain of imprisonment. I feel 
very strongly on the subject. That is why I object to 


88 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


human children being brought over here to pry, and 
perhaps to tell tales. I shall make a law forbidding 
that, too.” 

“I think it would be a pity to do away with the good 
feeling that exists between us and human children,” 
said the Lord Chancellor. 4 4 Allowing one of them 
occasionally to visit us here is the only return we can 
make for special kindness. I shouldn’t make that law 
if I were you, your Majesty.” 

“When I was at the head of my Pieces over there,” 
said the King, “there was a horrible child who used to 
put my head in her mouth. She had at the time only 
one tooth, but I bear the marks of that tooth upon me 
to this day . 9 9 

Directly he had spoken, a sudden memory came back 
to Peggy. A year or so before, her father had wanted 
to play a game of chess with a friend. The chess- 
men had been brought out, but it had been found that 
the white king was missing. Then it had come out 
that Peggy had had him to play with when she had 
been a baby, and he had not been seen since. Of course 
she had been too young to remember playing with him, 
but she felt almost certain that King Selim was the 
very same piece, especially as he was exactly the same 
in pattern as the black king, who still remained. 


I 


KING SELIM HOLDS AN AUDIENCE 89 


4 ‘Why, I do believe you’re our white chess king!” 
she cried out. ‘ ‘ Father will be glad that you are found 
again. ’ ’ 



VII 

THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 

It would be impossible to describe the consternation 
that Peggy’s remark caused in the Hall of Audience. 
King Selim grew purple in the face with passion, and 
cried out in a terrible voice, 44 Arrest this Human in- 
stantly, and take her off to prison. She has spoken 
the truth, and it shall be her own undoing. ’ ’ 

Some royal guards stepped forward to do his bid- 
ding, and there was a great commotion among the 
other dolls in the Hall. 

But before the soldiers could reach Peggy, the Lord 
Chancellor made his voice heard above the hubbub. 
4 4 Half a moment ! Half a moment ! Half a moment ! ’ ’ 
he kept on calling out, louder and louder, and quicker 
and quicker, until the words sounded like 44 Ar-mo! 
Ar-mo!” The soldiers paused, and the noise died 
down, until he could make himself heard. 

4 4 It is rather a serious thing to arrest a Human, your 
Majesty,” he said. 44 I don’t think it has ever been 

90 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 91 

done before, and it may make a deal of trouble. We 
ought to be careful how we go. * ’ 

The King was still almost beside himself with rage. 
“Do you think I am going to let my enemy go, now I 
have got her in my power at last!” he cried. “Yes, 
that’s the odious child who made these scars.” 

Since his face had become so red, a lot of little white 
marks had come out all over it. They were the marks 
of Peggy’s dear little first tooth, and she couldn’t help 
laughing as she looked at them, which made the King 
angrier still. 

“How dare you laugh!” he cried passionately. 
“I’ll send you to prison, and keep you on bread and 
water and mustard. I’ll execute you. I’ll have. your 
ears boxed three times a day, an hour before meals 
and half an hour after. If my mouth was big enough 
I’d bite your head, and see how you liked it. Arrest 
her instantly and take that wax doll with her as well, 
and the woman who dared to think she was going to 
marry me. Do it at once, and don’t you dare to cross 
my royal will any longer, Norval, or I’ll have you 
arrested, too.” 

As the King had given way when the Lord Chan- 
cellor spoke firmly, so the Lord Chancellor now gave 
way when the King spoke firmly. He shrugged his 


92 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


shoulders, and said, 4 ‘ Well, I think you are making a 
mistake, your Majesty, but if you say it is to be done, 
of course it must be done. ’ ’ 

Wooden rose from her seat as the officials prepared 
to carry out the King’s orders. 4 ‘If they are to go to 
prison,” she said, “I shall go, too, and so will mother. 
Then we can all keep each other company. I expect 
they will take us to the House of Cards, dear,” she 
said in a lower voice to Peggy. “It is very nice there, 
and there is a lovely view.” 

Now it might have been thought that King Selim 
would have hesitated before letting Wooden go off to 
prison, considering he had just told her that he in- 
tended to marry her in half an hour. But he was so 
beside himself with rage that he hardly knew what he 
was doing or saying. “Take the whole lot of them 
off,” he ordered, “and don’t let me see their ugly faces 
again.” Then he gathered up his robes and stalked 
off the dais and out of the Hall, by a door at the back, 
which he banged after him. 

The royal guards now approached the five prisoners, 
but did not take hold of them or put handcuffs on them, 
or anything of that sort. For the Lord Chancellor 
said to them, ‘ ‘ Go easy, now ! It ’s only a little flash in 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 


93 


the pan, ladies. The King is rather irritable by 
nature, and I don’t think his lunch has agreed with him. 
But he will think better of this by-and-by, and you will 
all be let out again. ’ ’ 

“ Not if I know it,” said a haughty, scornful voice. 

It was Rose, who still stood on the dais, and was 
looking at them with a cruel joy, which she made no 
effort to disguise. 

Her contemptuous gaze fell upon each of them in 
turn, but when she came to Peggy it turned into one of 
absolute ferocity. She stretched out her forefinger, 
and pointed at her. “Base human,” she addressed 
her. “I never thought to get you into my power, but 
now I have you you will rue the day when you came 
across the path of Rose, who never forgets and never 
forgives.” 

“Tut! tut!” said the Lord Chancellor. “These are 
hard words, madam, and quite out of order.” 

“Silence!” cried Rose, in a terrible voice, and flash- 
ing a terrible look at him from her dark and flaming 
eyes. And the Lord Chancellor shrugged his shoulders 
again, and kept silence, until she had finished her ora- 
tion. 

“Was it not enough,” she said, “that I should be 


94 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


born into the world over there as the property of a 
human child whom I despised and hated, but I must be 
treated by her with the grossest indignity !” 

Peggy thought this was a little too much. She was 
not in the least frightened of Rose, nor of the King, 
nor of all the palace guards put together, and thought 
it would be rather amusing to go to a dolls’ prison, and 
see what it was like. But she was not going to be 
stormed at and told stories about by Rose. 

‘ ‘ Why did you hate me?” she asked. 4 * 1 was always 
kind to you, and I would have loved you if you had let 
me.” 

Rose laughed her scornful laugh. “As if I wanted 
your love!” she exclaimed. “Or the love of any 
human child ! I hate the whole tribe of them, and wish 
I could have them all over here, and tell them what I 
thought of them.” 

“Oh, this is quite out of order, quite out of order,” 
said the Lord Chancellor fussily. “I wish you would 
finish what you have to say, madam, and let us get on 
with our work. You are keeping us all waiting.” 

Rose took no notice of him, but went on. “You ex- 
changed me,” she said, “for a battered wreck of a 
wooden doll, without a vestige of beauty such as mine, 
or indeed of any sort.” 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 


95 


“Who are you talking about, Miss Imperence?” said 
Wooden’s aunt, suddenly breaking in. “This young 
lady exchanged you for my niece, who is going to be 
Queen when she comes out of prison. You’d better 
be a bit more careful of what you say; that’s my advice 
to you. And don’t forget that what we can’t see of 
you is stuffed with sawdust.” 

“Yes, I should leave off, if I were you,” said the 
Lord Chancellor. “You are not being polite, you 
know, and it is quite true what the lady says. It is 
the future Queen of Toyland that you seem to have 
been exchanged for, and his Majesty won’t like it if 
you call her names.” 

Rose laughed her scornful laugh again. “ She will 
never be Queen of Toyland,” she said. “I’ll see to 
that.” And with a toss of her head and a swish of 
her skirts she swept out of the Hall, by the door 
through which the King had already disappeared. 

The Lord Chancellor completely recovered his good 
humour the moment she was gone. “What a very 
talkative lady!” he said, with a laugh. “However, we 
needn’t worry our heads about her. We’ve got plenty 
to occupy ourselves about, haven’t we?” 

It really seemed as if they had. It is not every day 
that five ladies are taken off to prison, not knowing 


96 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


when they will be let out again; and the experience 
would naturally make them think. But the four dolls 
did not seem to be much cast down by the prospect, 
and Wooden kept on assuring Peggy that the House 
of Cards was a very nice prison, and there was a mag- 
nificent view from the upper stories. 

The Lord Chancellor proposed that they should walk 
to the prison, so that Peggy might see some of the life 
of Dolltown before she was shut up. “I should have 
liked to take you about myself,” he said politely, 
“and to show you some hospitality during your visit. 
It’s a pity you didn’t come when Queen Rosebud was 
alive. However, we must make the best of things, 
mustn’t we? I’ll see that you’re comfortable, and 
have plenty of pot-plants. We might buy a few as we 
go along. I like pot-plants.” 

They set out. The Lord Chancellor gave the palace 
guards instructions to walk behind. ‘ 1 The people will 
think they are just a guard of honour,” he explained 
kindly. “If they were to put handcuffs on you, it 
would be different. But I have always been one for 
making things comfortable all around. Live and let 
live is my motto.” 

He walked between Peggy and Wooden as they went 
through the streets, and turned out to be a pleasant, 



He walked between Peggy and Wooden 

97 


98 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


chatty old gentleman, with a well-stored mind, and a 
fund of varied information. He told Peggy a good 
deal that interested her about the conditions of life 
in Dolltown, and she found it difficult to believe that 
she was really being taken to prison, and quite enjoyed 
her walk. 

The streets were gay, and crowded with dolls of all 
sorts except those made of wax. A good deal of in- 
terest was aroused by the little procession, with the 
six palace guards bringing up the rear. Gradually a 
crowd of dolls gathered and walked with them, so that 
the streets became rather full, and the dolls who were 
driving the toy hansom cabs, and the toy motors, and 
the toy carts, had some difficulty in making their way 
along. 

The Lord Chancellor seemed to enjoy the attention 
that was being drawn to them, but also to be a little 
anxious about being recognized. He called his secre- 
tary to him, and said, “You might just tell some of the 
people that the elderly gentleman in the velvet gown, 
with a learned and amiable expression of face, is the 
Lord Chancellor. Then they will hand it on to the 
others. We will- go into this shop and buy some pot- 
plants. ,, 

They went into a flower-shop, full of toy flowers in 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 


99 


very bright red pots, and the Lord Chancellor made a 
handsome purchase, and paid for it with toy money, 
which Peggy thought most fascinating. She wished 
she had brought some of hers with her, for she had had 



a lot given to her for a Christmas present, and would 
have been quite rich with it in Toyland. The pots 
were given to the guards to carry, and they said good- 
bye to the nice pleasant woman doll who kept the shop, 
and set out again. 




100 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


While they had been in the shop, the Lord Chancel- 
lor’s secretary had been telling everybody who they 
were, and also that they were all on their way to prison. 
He had not been told to say this, but he was rather 
stupid. The only reason why he was kept on was that 
he was so willing. But this time he had been a little 
too willing, for a lot of the doll people were inclined 
to be angry at so much sending to prison, and some 
of them thought that the Lord Chancellor could have 
stopped it if he had liked. 

So when they all came out of the shop, there were 
not quite so many smiles for them as before, and there 
were even a few boos and hisses as they continued on 
their way. 

The Lord Chancellor looked surprised and pained. 
“Now I did think that when they were told who I was 
they would be pleased,” he said. “I must say that 
I do like people to like me, and it makes me positively 
miserable if they don’t. What can I have done! 
There isn’t a smut on my nose, or anything like that, 
is there!” 

“No,” said Wooden. “There is only a small pim- 
ple that people might mistake for a smut if they were 
a little short-sighted.” 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 


101 


“Ah, then I expect that is it,” said the Lord Chan- 
cellor, “That pimple has been growing lately, and I 
always feared that it would bring me trouble.” 

Peggy now began to be a little frightened, for the 
crowd of dolls was pressing more closely round them, 
and the hisses and the booing were beginning to get 
louder. Many of the dolls looked angry, too, and she 
found that it was one thing to laugh at a single chess 
king being angry, and quite another to have several 
hundred dolls as large as life jostling round her in a 
crowd. 

You see, an angry doll is not what you are accus- 
tomed to, and you are always apt to be a little fright- 
ened at something that is quite strange. 

But just as it was beginning to be difficult to move 
forward, because of the crowd, Peggy suddenly caught 
sight of something that took her mind off what was 
happening. This was the shiny black hat and yellow 
robe of Mr. Noah on the edge of the crowd, and not 
only that, but the brown coat and merry face of her 
own old Teddy. She had been so occupied with all 
the curious and interesting things that had been hap- 
pening since she had come off the ark that she had had 
no time to think about Teddy, or to wonder what he 


102 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


was doing. But evidently he had made great friends 
with Mr. and Mrs. Noah, and was going about with 
them. 

Well, Teddy was peering between the heads of the 
people to see what was happening, and directly he 
caught sight of Peggy he pushed his way through the 
crowd, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Noah. All of them 
were tall and strong, and although there were some 
complaints from the dolls they elbowed aside, such as, 
“Now then, where do you think you are going?” and 
“Mind who you’re shoving, can’t you?” the three of 
them quickly got through. 

“Now then, Mr. Man,” said Teddy to the Lord 
Chancellor, “where are you taking my young mistress 
off to?” 

“Why, they’re taking them off to prison!” said an 
indignant voice from the crowd, and it was repeated 
by several other voices, equally indignant. “They’re 
taking them off to prison.” 

The Lord Chancellor held up his hand. “Now then, 
my good people,” he said, “don’t disturb yourselves, 
I do pray and beg of you. It’s the King’s orders, you 
know, and you can really hardly call it going to prison. 
They are going to be his Majesty’s guests for a little 
time in the House of Cards. There’s a glorious view 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 


103 


from there, and they will get very good food. You see, 
we’ve just been buying pot-plants to brighten up their 
apartments for them. Here they are. The guards are 
carrying them. You can see them for yourselves. Do 
please let us get on. The ladies want their tea.” 

The Lord Chancellor seemed to attach great impor- 
tance to the pot-plants, and they did make some im- 
pression on the crowd, because they could all see them, 
and there was no doubt about them at all. They made 
way for the Lord Chancellor to go on for a few steps, 
followed by his charges. 

But Teddy wasn’t at all satisfied. “Here, wait a 
minute, Mister,” he said. “What are you taking my 
young mistress to prison for? That’s what I want to 
know. And, why bless me! here’s Wooden, too, and 
Lady Grace, and Wooden’s mother and aunt. I say, 
this won’t do at all, you know. Are they all going to 
prison!” 

“Oh, yes, but only — well, you might almost call it 
for a little fun, ’ ’ said the Lord Chancellor. “It’s more 
like a first-class hotel than a prison, you know. And — 
and — well, look at the pot-plants! You can see for 
yourself ! ’ ’ 

“Oh, blow the pot-plants!” said Teddy; and Peggy 
did not object to the vulgarity of the expression, as he 


104 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


spoke as if he really meant to do something. “What 
are they going to prison for?” 

“Three wooden dolls, too!” said Mrs. Noah. “And 
one of them was going to be Queen, we were all told. 
It doesn’t seem to me as if the new King was acting 
quite right, it doesn’t.” 

There were murmurs among the crowd. Mrs. Noah 
seemed to have hit upon a feeling that they all shared, 
more or less. “No, it isn’t right.” “There was 
hardly any sending to prison in Queen Rosebud’s 
time.” “They don’t look as if they had done any- 
thing wrong either. ” “Nice kind faces, all of them ! ’ ’ 
These were a few of the speeches that reached Peggy’s 
ears from among the dolls who were all round her. 

The Lord Chancellor still kept his good-natured ex- 
pression of face, as if they were all making a great 
fuss about nothing, but he would put up with it for the 
sake of pleasing them. “Now, look here,” he said in 
a persuasive voice, “I think there’s a great deal in 
what you say, and I should be the last one to want to 
go against you. A more intelligent and intellectual- 
looking crowd I have seldom set eyes on, and it ’s a real 
pleasure to address you.” 

There were murmurs of approval, and one smartly 
dressed lady-doll standing near to Peggy, said, “Lord 


THEY ALL GO TO PRISON 105 

Norval can be trusted. I know all about him, and I 
once met him at a garden party. ’ ’ 

“Now suppose we come to a compromise, ’ ’ said the 
Lord Chancellor. 

There were more murmurs of approval. Another 
lady doll near to Peggy asked, “What is a compro- 
mise ^ 

“Oh, don’t you know?” said the first lady doll. 
“It’s ‘If you give way, I’ll pretend to.’ ” 

“What I suggest is this,” said the Lord Chancellor. 
“Let us all take these ladies to the House of Cards — 
it isn ’t really like a prison at all, you know — and when 
we have made them comfortable there, and got them 
off our minds, then we ’ll talk about what can be done. 
Now that strikes me as eminently fair.” 

“Yes, that’s a compromise,” said the first lady doll, 
“and a very good one. But I knew that the Lord 
Chancellor could be trusted. A cook I once had had 
been kitchen maid to a great friend of his wife’s.” 

Peggy did not think much of the Lord Chancellor’s 
compromise, but it seemed to satisfy the crowd, who 
greeted it with enthusiasm, and immediately made a 
way through for them, and went along with them. 
Peggy thought that Teddy would have seen that if 
they were once all shut up in prison it would be much 


106 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


more difficult to get them out again than to prevent 
their going there. But he said no more. With an 
encouraging wave of the paw he took himself oft, fol- 
lowed by Mr. and Mrs. Noah, and was lost to view. 
Peggy felt a little sad, but only for a moment, because 
she couldn’t help treating the whole business as a sort 
of game; and everybody knows that whatever dread- 
ful things happen in dolls’ games, everything always 
comes right in the end. 

So on they all went, and by-and-by they came to the 
House of Cards. 



VIII 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY AND HAS A SUKPRISE 

The House of Cards was a noble structure, and one 
which interested Peggy extremely. She had once built 
one herself, up to five stories, and had nearly finished 
the sixth before it tumbled down. But the House of 
Cards in Dolltown was of no less than thirteen stories, 
and towered high above all the other buildings. Each 
story was as high as the shops round the market-place, 
and not even the Post-Office, which was an imposing 
edifice of terra-cotta bricks, reached higher than its 
second story. It was built up of gigantic cards, just 
as Peggy had built hers with ordinary sized ones, but 
it seemed quite strong, and as if it would last for ever. 
There were windows and doors in the cards, and the 
ones that were laid flat at each story formed platforms 
and balconies, on which you could go out to look about 
you. 

Just as the Lord Chancellor was ushering them in 
to the House of Cards, a lead Life Guardsman from the 
palace rode up on his black horse and handed him a 
107 


108 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


note. “Now I am rather sorry for that,” he said, 
when he had read it. “I had intended to shut you all 
up in the top story, for the sake of the view. But the 
King doesn’t wish that. You are to be imprisoned on 
the first floor. Those are his very words. Well, you 
will be able to see the life of the market-place, which 
is very entertaining. As a distinguished doll once 
said, ‘There is no cloud without its silver lining.’ 
You couldn’t do that so conveniently from the top 
story. Perhaps the King thought of that. There is 
a good deal of thoughtfulness in his nature, though he 
is apt to be a little irritable after meals. ’ ’ 

“It’s like his nastiness not to let us see the view,” 
said W ooden ’s aunt. ‘ 6 1 wouldn ’t marry him now, not 
if he was to go down on his bended knees, I wouldn’t.” 

Peggy would have liked to go up to the top of the 
House of Cards, but it turned out very well for them 
all that they were not shut up there, as will presently 
appear. 

The cards of which the house was built were so 
enormous that each story had two floors of several 
rooms. They were taken upstairs by a policeman 
doll, and found themselves in a spacious apartment 
furnished with quite nice dolls’ furniture, and not like 
a prison at all. The Lord Chancellor rubbed his hands 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 


109 


as he looked round him, and said, ‘ ‘ Well, this isn’t so 
bad, is it? With the pot-plants it will look quite home- 
like, and I should think, when you are set free, you will 
hardly like to leave it. You can go out on this bal- 
cony, see? We might go out now, and look at the 
people. I’m sure they will be pleased to see us all, 
especially me. The people have a great love for me, 
and it is very gratifying. I often think about it 
when I am alone, and it sometimes brings tears to my 
eyes.” 

They went out on the balcony, and looked down at 
the crowd of dolls in the market-place. There were 
all sorts there except wax. Peggy looked to see if she 
could see Teddy or the Noahs among them. There 
were several Teddy bears, and one or two Noahs in the 
crowd, but although she might not have recognized 
the Noahs of the royal Ark, Peggy would have known 
her own Teddy anywhere. She was sure that he was 
not in the crowd, and wondered what had become of 
him. 

The crowd of dolls cheered when they appeared on 
the balcony. The Lord Chancellor put himself in 
front, and bowed repeatedly, but the dolls seemed to 
be cheering Wooden more than him. This was prob- 
ably because they had been told that she was to be 


110 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


their Queen, and because any doll who knew her would 
have told their friends how nice and good she was. 
So the news would have spread, and Wooden would 
have become popular. At any rate the dolls kept on 
calling out, “Wooden! Wooden! Speech! Speech !” 

The platform was too high above the market-place 
to make it convenient for anybody to make a speech 
from it, even if they had wished to. Wooden did not 
wish to, not being accustomed to public speaking, but 
her aunt offered to dance a Highland fling, which her 
late husband had taught her. This offer was refused, 
and Wooden’s mother told her to behave herself, and 
remember where she was. 

“Now, I must leave you,” said the Lord Chancellor. 
“Good-bye, ladies, and a very pleasant imprisonment 
to you ! ’ ’ 

He shook hands affably with all of them, and bowed 
himself out. He seemed already to have forgotten the 
compromise he had come to with the people, and they 
seemed to have forgotten it, too; for Peggy watched 
him go off, followed by the palace guards, and bowing 
to right and left. The dolls in the market-place 
cheered heartily, but none of them stopped him to say 
anything, and he disappeared round the corner. 

“Dolls seem to have very short memories,” said 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 


111 


Peggy to herself. She could not help feeling a little 
unhappy at being shut up in a prison, though it was 
only a dolls ’ prison, and quite different from the stone 
cells she had read about. She did think that her own 
Teddy might have done something more to help them. 
She knew now that he was rather flighty, but surely 
he need not have gone off like that, and have left his 
mistress and her friends to be locked up, without try- 
ing to do anything to rescue them ! She supposed he 
was amusing himself with his new friends, Mr. and 
Mrs. Noah, and had forgotten all about her. 

But she did Teddy an injustice there, as you will 
soon see. 

The policeman doll came up to see if they wanted 
anything directly the Lord Chancellor had gone, and 
brought his wife with him. He was a large, amiable- 
looking doll, and his wife was nice too. She was 
dressed as a Swiss peasant, and when she saw Peggy 
she said, 4 ‘ Bon jour, Mademoiselle! Comment ga va 
t’ilf” 

Now Peggy knew a good deal of French already, 
because her father and mother took her to Etretat 
every summer for the holidays. So she said at once, 
“Merci, Madame, ga va bien. Et vous?” 

The policeman dolPs wife was delighted to hear her 


112 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 



own language spoken, and asked Peggy if she might 
kiss her. The policeman doll beamed affectionately 
at them, and said, “Isn’t that clever now? 1 never 
could pick up her lingo.” 

They said they would like some tea as soon as pos- 
sible, and apricot jam with it. The policeman doll’s 
wife, whose name was Mrs. Emma, said that she would 
bring it up as soon as she had bathed her baby. 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 113 

“Oh, have you got a long-clothes baby?” asked 
Peggy, clasping her two hands together. 

Mrs. Emma said that she had, and Peggy begged 
her to let her go down and bathe it for her. 

The policeman doll said he didn’t think he could 
allow that without orders, but Mrs. Emma persuaded 
him, and he said that as the outer door of the house 
was locked, perhaps it wouldn’t much matter after 
all; only she wasn’t to tell anybody. Peggy would 
have promised almost anything for the sake of bath- 
ing a real live baby doll, and promised this readily 
enough. So she left the four dolls, promising to come 
back soon, and went downstairs with Mr. and Mrs. 
Emma. 

They lived in the basement, where they had a large 
and well-furnished kitchen, spotlessly clean. In one 
corner of it was a pretty bassinette covered with mus- 
lin and ribbons, and inside it was the sweetest little 
baby doll, beautifully dressed in a hand-made robe of 
cambric and lace. Everything was so pretty and 
dainty that it might have belonged to a princess, and 
Mrs. Emma told Peggy that she took a great pride in 
having everything very nice for her baby. 

Peggy lost her heart to the baby doll at once. She 
would have loved it even if it bad been just like other 







PEGGY BATHES A BABY 


115 


dolls, but when it smiled at her, and put out its little 
pudgy hands, and gurgled happily, she could almost 
have eaten it, it was so fascinating. 

Mrs. Emma put on her a large bath apron, and got 
out a white enamelled toy bath, with a gold rim round 
it, and a cake of pink soap, and filled the bath with hot 
water. And then Peggy lifted the baby doll carefully 
out of the cot and undressed it and put it into the bath, 
first putting her own hand in the water to see that it 
was not too hot. 

It was lovely, bathing that beautiful fat laughing 
baby doll. Mrs. Emma stood over the bath smiling 
at them both, but she soon saw that Peggy knew ex- 
actly what to do and how to do it, so she went away to 
her work in another part of the kitchen. 

Peggy was so busy with the baby doll, and so 
wrapped up in it, that she did not pay much attention 
to what Mr. and Mrs. Emma were talking about. But 
she heard some of the things they said, and, although 
she did not pay much attention to them at the time, 
as I have said, they turned out to be important after- 
wards, as you will see. 

When Peggy had bathed the baby doll, and dressed 
it and put it back into its cot, she was taken upstairs 
again. She found the Woodens and Lady Grace on 


116 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


the balcony, where something interesting was just 
about to happen. 

A Teddy bear had made its appearance in the mar- 
ket-place with an enormous pole, and just as Peggy 
went out on to the balcony he was balancing it on his 
head. Then he balanced it on different parts of his 
body, as he knelt or lay or stooped on the ground. 
The crowd of dolls who still filled the market-place 
was absolutely delighted with his performance, and 
when he shouted out that he would climb up to the top 
of the pole and balance himself on his head, if some- 
body would hold it for him, all the gentlemen dolls in 
the market-place wanted to have the honour of hold- 
ing the pole for him. 

But the Teddy bear said he must choose who should 
hold the pole himself, and chose out of the crowd four 
tall wooden dolls with shiny black hats and different 
coloured robes. Then he looked up at Peggy and the 
four dolls standing on the balcony of the House of 
Cards, and waved his paw and made a low bow, and 
told his four assistants to hold up the pole near the 
House, so that the ladies could see. The crowd of 
dolls was pleased at this, for they were sorry for the 
prisoners, and wanted them to have all the amusement 
that they could get. 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 


117 


Well, of course you have already understood that 
the Teddy bear who was so clever at his acrobatic feats 
was Peggy’s own old Teddy, who had not forgotten 
her at all, but had evidently chosen this means of get- 
ting at them. And the four tall wooden dolls who 
were helping him were Mr. Noah of the Royal Ark, 
and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. It was 
rather clever of Teddy to have chosen them out of the 
crowd, as if he hadn ’t known them before. But Teddy 
was clever, in spite of his flightiness, and faithful, too, 
as Peggy was very glad to see. She had recognized 
him at once, but the crowd had not. One Teddy bear 
is very much like another, unless he happens to be your 
own, and there were several of them in the crowd it- 
self, as I have already said. 

Teddy climbed carefully up to the top of the pole, 
and when he got there he stood on one foot and waved 
his paws about, and then changed to the other foot, 
and kissed his paw to the crowd, and to Peggy and the 
dolls on the balcony. Peggy was afraid that he might 
tumble, and almost forgot to listen for anything that 
he might say when he got near to them. But he 
seemed quite at home on his pole, and as he turned 
towards them and kissed his paw, he said in a mys- 
terious voice, “One of you go to the other side.” 


118 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


That was all he said, and the crowd down below 
could not have known that he was saying anything 
at all, he did it so cleverly. He was just on a level 
with the balcony, and could easily have jumped on 
to it if he had wanted to. Peggy had thought that 
perhaps he had meant to do that, so as to be with 
them, because he could not have got there in any other 
way. But he was too clever for that, for if he had 
stepped on to the balcony, all the dolls who had been 
watching him would have known at once that they had 
been deceived. And besides, he would only have been 
locked up with Peggy and the four dolls, and could 
have done nothing more to help them. 

When Teddy had said, “One of you go to the other 
side,” he turned round again, and then stood on his 
head on the top of the pole, as he had promised to do. 
The crowd of dolls was wild with delight, and none 
of them suspected that he had given a message to the 
prisoners. 

“What does he mean? What are we to go to the 
other side for?” asked Wooden. 

“I expect there is somebody there,” said Lady 
Grace. “Shall I go?” 

“No, I’ll go,” said Wooden’s aunt, who had largely 
recovered her spirits during Teddy’s performance, and 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 119 

had danced a few steps of a Highland fling on her own 
account, while he was posturing on the pole. 

“I think Peggy had better go,” said Wooden’s 
mother. ‘ ‘ She has a slightly better head than any of 
us, because she is human.” 

“Oh, yes, let Peggy go,” said all the others at once. 
So Peggy went round the balcony to the other side of 
the house, feeling proud at the trust reposed in her, 
but a little alarmed also at what should happen. But 
she hid that from the dolls, and walked with a firm 
and confident step. 

There was as big a space in the market-place on 
the other side of the House of Cards as in the one in 
which Teddy was performing, but it was absolutely 
empty. Every doll was watching Teddy, and even the 
shops were deserted, as all the doll shopkeepers had 
gone round to the other side. A thief might have 
taken anything he liked from the shops, and nobody 
would have seen him. But dolls are never thieves, 
so it was quite safe. 

Perhaps I ought not to have said that that side of 
the market-place was absolutely empty. It looked so 
to Peggy when she got there, but when she looked over 
the edge of the platform she saw a solitary doll figure 
standing below her, looking up. It was rather a dis- 


120 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


appointment to her, for it was a gentleman doll 
wrapped up in a long black cloak, and he had his arms 
full of pot-plants, like the ones the Lord Chancellor 
had bought to brighten up their rooms. Peggy thought 
they had quite enough pot-plants to go on with, and, 
if the gentleman doll only wanted to sell them some 
more, it was hardly worth Teddy’s cleverness to get 
all the people round on the other side, so that he 
might do so without being observed. 

And that was apparently all that the gentleman doll 
did want, for directly he saw Peggy looking over the 
platform at him he called up to her, ‘ 1 Kind lady, buy 
a few pot-plants from a poor man. I’ve got some 
lovely ones here.” 

“No, thank you,” said Peggy. “We have plenty. 
Besides, I haven’t got any money; at least, not 
here.” 

“I don’t want any money for them,” said the gen- 
tleman doll. “Let me come up and show you my 
lovely pot-plants.” 

Now there was something in his voice that Peggy 
seemed to recognize. She thought she had heard it 
before, but she couldn’t remember where or when. 
However, she began to understand that the pot-plants 
were only an excuse for the gentleman doll to get into 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 


121 


the House of Cards, and that if he did so he might 
have something interesting to say. 

“I should be glad if you could come up,” she said. 
“But the doors are locked, and I don’t suppose they 
will let you. ’ ’ 

“Yes, they will, if you say the word ‘ pot-plants,’ ” 
said the gentleman doll. “Say that somebody has 
come from the palace with some pot-plants for you. 
Go quickly, before anybody comes.” 

Peggy went back, and told Wooden and the others 
what had happened. “I don’t know who it was,” she 
said, “but I couldn’t help thinking that I had heard 
his voice before.” 

“Was it the Lord Chancellor?” asked Wooden’s 
mother. “Perhaps this is his compromise.” 

“I don’t think so,” said Peggy. “But hadn’t we 
better ask for him to be let in?” 

Teddy had finished his performance, and was climb- 
ing down the pole. It was time to do something, for 
soon the crowd of dolls would disperse, and some would 
go round to the other side of the House. 

“Yes, dear, we had better do that,” said Wooden. 
“It is a very good idea. Perhaps you had better go 
yourself, if you don’t mind, as it was you who heard 
what he said.” 


122 


PEGGY IX TOYLAXD 


Peggy would have been quite willing to go down, 
but the door of their room was locked. So after a 
little more discussion they rang the bell, and pres- 
ently Mr. Emma came up to see what they wanted. 

The dolls seemed to expect Peggy to speak, so she 
said, “There is a man outside who wants to come up 
and see us.” 

Mr. Emma beamed affectionately upon her. “Bless 
your dear little heart!” he said. “I’d do anything 
to please you, but I can’t let anybody up to see you 
without orders. It would be as much, as my place- is 
worth.” 

“He has come from the palace with some pot- 
plants,” said Peggy. 

Mr. Emma’s face underwent a complete change. 
“Come with what?” he asked. 

“With some pot-plants.” 

“Oh, well then. I’ll let him up at once,” said Mr. 
Emma. “Oh, certainly.” 

He went out quickly, but did not forget to lock the 
door behind him. 

Just as he had locked it, and they thought he was 
on his way downstairs, he unlocked it again, and put 
his head into the room. “What did you say the ttiati 
had come with?” he asked. 


PEGGY BATHES A BABY 


123 


“With some pot-plants,’ ’ said Peggy again. 

“Ah, that’s the word,” he said. “I wasn’t quite 
certain I’d got it right.” 

Then he locked the door behind him again, and they 
heard his feet going heavily downstairs. 

In a few minutes he came back again, unlocked the 
door, and came into the room with the gentleman doll, 
who was wrapped in his long cloak, and carried his 
pots in his arms. 

“I’ll leave the gentleman with you for a bit,” said 
Mr. Emma, “as I’m just in the middle of my tea.” 

He went out and locked the door behind him once 
more. The gentleman doll, who had put the pots down 
on the floor, stood up and threw off his cloak, and re- 
vealed the stalwart form and handsome features of 
Colonel Jim, of the Life Guards. 



IX 

THEY DISCUSS A PLAN OF ESCAPE 

The first thing Colonel Jim did when he had thrown 
off his disguise was to bow politely to all of them. 
But to Lady Grace he did more than that. He took 
her hand and kissed it respectfully, and then said, 
“Very sorry to see you here, my lady. Forming plans 
to get you out. Disgraceful affair altogether !” 

Lady Grace looked pleased at the attention paid to 
her, and blushed. Peggy had not known before that 
dolls could fall in love, but it was quite plain that Lady 
Grace was in love with handsome Colonel Jim. It 
seemed plain also that he was in love with her. He 
spoke in short sharp sentences because he was a sol- 
dier, and loved deeds better than words. But there 
was a tenderness in his manner when he addressed 
Lady Grace which he did not show to anybody but her, 
though his manners were always courteous. 

Wooden’s aunt gave a screech of enjoyment when 
Colonel Jim kissed Lady Grace’s hand, and said, 

124 



took 


her 


hand 


it 


He 


125 




126 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“ Lawks! I wish I’d got a handsome beau like that.” 
But nobody took any notice of her, as there was so 
much to talk about. Wooden’s mother requested Colo- 
nel Jim to take a seat, which he did, and proceeded to 
explain himself. 

“ Didn’t hear you were shut up till Teddy bear came 
and told me so,” he said. 4 ‘ Determined at once to use 
pass-word for the day, which I knew, as commanding 
troops at palace. Pass-word ‘ Pot-plants.’ So con- 
cocted plan with Teddy bear, and here I am.” 

Peggy wondered that she had not known who he 
was under his disguise. But he had not then spoken 
in the military way he used now, as he had, of course, 
been playing his part as well as he could. 

“And very pleased we are to see you, Colonel Jim,” 
said Wooden, in her nice gentle manner. “It’s a sad 
thing, this shutting up of Waxes and others. I’m sure 
dear Queen Rosebud would never have allowed it, if 
she had been alive. ’ ’ 

“It’s my belief,” said Colonel Jim, “that Queen 
Rosebud is alive.” 

All the dolls exclaimed, in surprise. And Wooden 
said, after the pause which followed, “But King Selim 
said that she was dead, Colonel Jim. We all heard 
him with our own ears.” 


THEY DISCUSS A PLAN OF ESCAPE 127 


“I know that,” said Colonel Jim shortly. 

There was another pause of consternation. “Do 
you mean that you think the King has told an un- 
truth?” asked Lady Grace, in an awestruck voice. 

“Yes,” said Colonel Jim. 

Another pause. “It would be a dreadful thing if 
he had,” said Wooden. “He wouldn’t deserve to be 
King if he could do a thing like that, would he ? ” 

“He doesn’t deserve it,” said Colonel Jim. 

Nobody spoke. The matter was too serious to be 
treated in a light conversational way, and it was felt 
that Colonel Jim must have more to tell them, if he 
could only get it out. 

He seemed to feel, himself, that he owed them ex- 
planations, and must try to make them as clear as 
possible, for he spoke slowly, and in longer sentences 
than he usually employed. He could do this all right 
if he liked. 

“It was Rose who put him up to it all,” he said. 
“She’s mad all the time because she isn’t Wax.” 

“And only half Composition,” put in Wooden’s aunt. 

“Well, that’s as may be,” said Colonel Jim. “Any- 
how, she got him to let her nurse the Queen, and told 
him to give out that she was dead. She wasn’t dead 
at all, but getting better all the time.” 


128 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“Do you mean that she told a story ?” asked 
Wooden, in a voice of consternation. 

“Yes,” said Colonel Jim. “I do.” 

“Well,” said Wooden, “I never liked her; but I did 
not think she would go so far as that.” 

“It’s depravity,” said Wooden’s mother. “That’s 
what I call it; positive depravity.” 

“Well, that’s as may be,” said Colonel Jim again. 
“Anyhow, that’s what she did.” 

“How did you find out about Rose so cleverly?” 
asked Lady Grace. 

Colonel Jim looked pleased at being called clever, 
which he wasn’t very. “One of my troopers is go- 
ing to be married to Rose’s maid,” he said. “She 
heard them talking — Rose and Selim — and told him 
about it. He came and told me. Very proper thing 
to do. Made him a lance-corporal on the spot. He 
marries the maid tomorrow. Shall give them a wed- 
ding present. Silver pepper-castor.” 

“Then, where is dear Queen Rosebud?” asked 
Wooden. “I am so glad she isn’t dead after all. I 
wish we could see her. ’ ’ 

“This is my month to be in waiting,” said Lady 
Grace. “Could you take me to her, do you think?” 

“Afraid that’s impossible,” said Colonel Jim. 


THEY DISCUSS A PLAN OF ESCAPE 129 


“ Don’t know where she is. She was taken out of the 
palace and hidden somewhere.” 

“How dreadful it all sounds,” said Wooden. “I 
shouldn’t have thought such things could have hap- 
pened in Toyland. I do hope they give her enough 
to eat.” 

“I expect she’s having her tea now,” said Wooden’s 
aunt. “If I was a Queen, I’d have herrings every 
day. ’ ’ 

It was a foolish remark, as many of Wooden’s 
aunt’s remarks were, but it turned out to be a lucky 
one, for it reminded Peggy of something she had heard 
downstairs, while she was bathing the baby doll. 

“I suppose she couldn’t be the lady in the top 
story!” she said. 

They stared at her. “What do you mean, dear? 
What lady?” asked Wooden. 

“When I was downstairs just now,” said Peggy, 
“ Mrs. Emma was getting tea ready for the lady in 
the top story, and Mr. Emma said he was sorry for 
her being shut up there, and he wondered if she would 
like a herring for her tea.” 

“Did they give her one?” asked Wooden’s aunt. 

“No,” said Peggy. “Mrs. Emma said that as she 
was Wax she might not like herrings.” 


130 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 



‘ * It’s the best fish out of the sea,” said Wooden’s 
aunt, smacking her lips. 6 4 Lawks ! How I wish they ’d 
bring me one ! ’ 7 

“Adone, now!” said Wooden’s mother sharply. 
“We’re talking about the Queen in the top story, not 
about what you ’d like to have for your tea. ’ ’ 


THEY DISCUSS A PLAN OF ESCAPE 131 


“I don’t know that it is the Queen,” said Peggy. 
“But there is a lady on the top story, and she is Wax. 
I know as much as that.” 

“And it’s a good deal to know, dear,” said Wooden 
fondly. “It was very clever of you to find it out.” 

“Oh, it’s the Queen, right enough,” said Colonel 
Jim. “Wonder we never thought of her being here 
before. Question is now how to get at her. I wish 
that Teddy bear was here. ’ ’ 

They all seemed at a loss what to do next, and the 
suggestions they made were not very helpful. Wooden 
thought that it would be a good thing if Teddy were 
to bring a very long pole and climb up to the top of 
the House of Cards. But it was quite certain that 
there wasn’t a pole long enough in the whole of Toy- 
land, or anywhere else. Wooden’s mother suggested 
throwing the Queen a rope. But it was equally cer- 
tain that nobody could have thrown it far enough. 
Wooden’s aunt said, why not telephone to her? But 
this was silly, because there was no telephone. 

By-and-by they all looked at Peggy, as if they ex- 
pected her to suggest something sensible. She did not 
like to disappoint them, as it was flattering the way 
they seemed to believe in her. So she knitted her 
brows hard, to see if she could think of something. 


132 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


‘ ‘We could do so much more if we weren’t locked up 
in prison,” she said at last. 

All the dolls looked at one another in admiration, 
and Wooden said, “Now, that’s one of the cleverest 
things I ever heard said, dear. How these things come 
into your head I can’t think.” 

Peggy didn’t think that what she had said was so 
clever as all that, though she had had something fur- 
ther in her mind when she had said it. But she was 
pleased at being praised; most of us are; and she 
wanted to be as helpful as she could. 

“Did you and Teddy make any plan for getting us 
out of prison?” she asked, turning to Colonel Jim. 

“Now, I wonder what made her think of that?” said 
Wooden’s mother. 

“Well, we did make a plan,” said Colonel Jim; 
“though how you guessed it I don’t know, as you 
couldn’t have heard us talking. Our plan was this: 
When I’m ready to go out, I say to Mr. Emma, 4 1 
should like to look at the view.’ He says, ‘With pleas- 
ure,’ and takes me up to the top story.” 

“But supposing he doesn’t say ‘With pleasure,’ ” 
suggested Wooden. 

Colonel Jim looked worried. ‘ ‘ Teddy bear said he ’d 


THEY DISCUSS A PLAN OF ESCAPE 133 


say ‘With pleasure/ ” he said. “Never thought of 
asking what to do if he didn't.” 

“If Teddy said he'd say ‘With pleasure,' I should 
think he would,” said Wooden. “Teddy is flighty, 
but I have always found his word reliable.” 

Colonel Jim brightened. “Well, then, we go up to 
the top story,” he said. “Then I look at the view, 
and I say — let's see, what is it I say? I've learnt it 
all up, but it's difficult to remember. Oh, yes, I know. 
I say, ‘What's that bird flying towards the sea?' No, 
that's wrong. I say, ‘What's that bird over there?' 
He says, ‘What bird? Where?' I say, ‘Over there!' 
pointing towards the sea. He turns to where I point, 
you see, and ” 

“But are you sure there will be a bird to point at?” 
asked Lady Grace. “If not, won't it be telling a 
story?” 

“Do you think it will?” asked Colonel Jim. “I 
shouldn't like to do that.” 

There was a pause. “I like the plan,” said 
Wooden, “but that does rather interfere with it, 
doesn't it?” 

They all looked at Peggy as if they expected her 
to find a way out of the difficulty; and she did so at 


134 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


once. “I think there are sure to be birds flying 
about/ ’ she said, “and some of them will be flying 
towards the sea.” 

Their faces brightened, and Wooden’s aunt slapped 
her knee. “Now, doesn’t that beat all?” she said. 
‘ ‘ How she do think of things, to be sure ! Well, go on, 
soldier. ’ ’ 

“Directly he says, ‘What bird, where?’ ” proceeded 
Colonel Jim, “that’s my sign. I get behind him. I 
whip off my cloak. I throw it over his head. I tie 
the cord — it’s got a cord, you see — round his arms, 
so that he can’t move. Then I say to him, ‘Your keys, 
please,’ Then I come downstairs with the keys, un- 
lock the doors, and off we go. Well, that’s the plan, 
and if it all goes right I don’t think a better plan was 
ever invented. It’s Teddy bear’s plan chiefly, but it 
was me who thought of saying, ‘Your keys, please,’ in- 
stead of ‘Hand over your keys.’ More polite. ” 

The plan was not received with the pleasure that 
Colonel Jim seemed to expect. Wooden said doubt- 
fully, “Mr. Emma is a very nice man. He might not 
like to have a cloak thrown over his head.” 

“Don’t you think he would?” asked Colonel Jim, in 
a disturbed way. “I never thought of that. What do 
you say, Peggy?” 


THEY DISCUSS A PLAN OF ESCAPE 135 


“If you were to treat him as gently as you could,” 
said Peggy, “and tell him that he might go down- 
stairs to Mrs. Emma and the baby in five minutes, 
when we had all got away, he might not mind so 
much. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ He couldn ’t do that, ’ ’ said Colonel Jim. * ‘ His legs 
would be tied up too. I forgot to say that. Can’t 
keep everything in your head at once. ’ 9 

“Try again, dear,” said Wooden hopefully. 

“Well, supposing we told Mrs. Emma she could go 
up and untie him, as we went out!” suggested Peggy. 

“The very thing!” exclaimed Wooden’s mother. 
“I should never have thought of that if I had tried 
for a week.” 

They had no time to settle anything further, for at 
that moment the key was heard turning in the lock 
outside. Colonel Jim had just time to put on his long 
cloak again before Mr. Emma came into the room. 

He seemed not to be in quite such a good temper 
as before. Directly he came in, he said to Colonel 
Jim, “Now, then, my man, you’ve been here quite 
long enough. Pot-plants or no pot-plants, it’s time 
you cleared out.” 

Colonel Jim hesitated. Peggy was afraid for the 
moment that he had forgotten the words he had learned 


136 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


so carefully. But they seemed to come to him all of 
a sudden. He straightened himself up, and said in a 
firm voice, but rather as if he were repeating a lesson, 
“I should like to go up to the top story and look at 
the view. ’ ’ 

Peggy heard Wooden say, “With pleasure/ ’ under 
her breath, as if she were helping Mr. Emma to re- 
member his part. 

But unfortunately Mr. Emma had not learnt his 
part. What he did say was, “Oh, you would, would 
you? Well, I’m afraid I can’t oblige you. I’m al- 
most run off my legs with work as it is. Now you 
come along down with me. ’ ’ 



X 


PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 

Colonel Jim threw a despairing look at Peggy; she 
could just see it under the hood that he had put over 
his head. His carefully arranged plan had gone 
wrong at the very beginning, and he hadn’t the least 
idea what to do next. Of course, he might just as 
w r ell have thrown his cloak over Mr. Emma’s head 
there and then, as done it on the top of the House of 
Cards, after pointing to a bird which might not have 
been there. But perhaps he did not like to exercise 
violence before ladies, or perhaps it never occurred 
to him to alter the plan so as to suit the circumstances. 
At any rate, he prepared to follow Mr. Emma down- 
stairs without any further ado. If Peggy had not sud- 
denly thought of something, there would have been an 
end of any good he had done by making his way in to 
them. 

As they were going out, Peggy said to Mr. Emma, 
i 1 If you and Mrs. Emma have got so much work to do, 
couldn’t I come down and help you?” 

137 


138 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


Mr. Emma turned round and beamed at her. “Now, 
you are a kind little lady!” he said. “And I don’t 
know as you can’t help us. Yes, you come along o’ 
me, dearie. My missus will be glad to see your pretty 
little face, anyhow, and you can talk to her a bit in 
her own lingo, which I never could fathom, nohow.” 

Peggy was very glad at that moment that she had 
paid attention to her French, which gave her this op- 
portunity of helping her doll friends, though she had 
been far from thinking that she would ever make such 
extraordinary use of it when she had talked as much 
as she could to French people during her holidays. 
She followed Mr. Emma out of the room, and he locked 
the door carefully after him, and led the way down- 
stairs. 

Now would have been Colonel Jim’s opportunity, 
either to throw his cloak over Mr. Emma, who was in 
front of him, or else to bolt upstairs instead of down. 
If he had done that, Mr. Emma would have had to 
follow him, and then they could have had it out to- 
gether, and Colonel Jim would probably have won, 
as he was younger and stronger than Mr. Emma. But, 
though as brave as a lion, Colonel Jim had a brain 
that did not move very fast. All he could do, as they 
went downstairs, was to nudge Peggy with his elbow, 


PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 139 


and that did not take them very far, for when she 
whispered to him, “What is it?” he had nothing to 
say. 

So it rested with her to think of something, and 
she whispered to Colonel Jim, unheard by Mr. Emma, 
whose large feet were making a considerable noise, 
“I will try to get upstairs, and see if it is the Queen 
who is there ; and you and Teddy must try to get in 
to us again. Then I will tell you what I have found 
out. ” 

Colonel Jim nodded his head repeatedly, and Peggy 
could only hope that he had understood what she had 
said, and would remember it, for she had not time to 
say it over again, as they had now reached the ground 
floor. 

Mr. Emma unlocked the big door leading into the 
market-place, and Colonel Jim went out. Just as he 
was going down the steps, Peggy had another bright 
idea. She said to Mr. Emma, “We should like this 
man to bring us a few more pot-plants later on. I sup- 
pose you will let him in, if he comes.” 

But Mr. Emma spoilt that little plan at the begin- 
ning, for he said, “No, dearie, I can’t do that. When 
he once goes out he stays out.” Then he locked the 
door. 


140 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


Mrs. Emma was pleased to see Peggy again. She 
and Mr. Emma had had their own tea, and she was 
preparing trays to take up to the prisoners. Peggy 
helped her to do this, while Mr. Emma sat by the 
cradle of his baby doll, of which he seemed to be very 



fond. Peggy couldn’t help going over to have a look 
at it sometimes, and see it smile and gurgle; and it 
delighted Mr. Emma to see her so taken up with his 
baby doll. This was a very good thing, for when 
Peggy said, "Now, I will take up the trays, if you 


PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 141 

like,” Mr. Emma replied, “I ought not to let yon do 
it, I suppose, because I shall have to give you my keys. 
But I’ve been so rushed off my legs today that I 
shan’t be sorry to sit still for a bit; and you’re such 
a nice little lady that I really feel as if I could do any- 
thing for you.” 

“It is more like Mademoiselle doing something for 
you,” said Mrs. Emma, with a laugh. But if she had 
only known, she might not have said that. 

“I know you wouldn’t want to get me into trouble,” 
said Mr. Emma as he handed Peggy his keys. “You 
won’t tell the King now, will you? He’s Wood, and 
so am I; but he don’t seem above punishing Woods, 
if it suits him, any more than the rest.” 

Peggy promised not to tell the King, readily enough. 
She was not quite sure that Mr. Emma might not get 
into trouble, if anything came of her taking his keys ; 
but she made up her mind to speak up for him when 
affairs in Toyland came to be righted, as she hoped 
they would be. Selim was only a usurping King, after 
all, and if Queen Rosebud was restored to her throne 
he would not be able to do any harm to Mr. Emma, or 
to anybody else. 

“First of all,” said Mrs. Emma, “you might take 
this tray up to the top story. There is a wax lady 


142 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


there who hasn’t been very well. I should like her 
to have her tea first. ’ ’ 

Peggy was almost frightened at the easiness of it 
all. She had hardly taken any trouble to bring it 
about, and here she was with the key to the Queen’s 
prison, and her tea-tray in her hands. For she had 
little doubt now that it was the Queen who was shut 
up in the top story. Mrs. Emma had no idea who she 
was, but she said she had been ill, and Peggy knew 
that the Queen had been ill. 

Just as she was going out with the tea-tray, Mrs. 
Emma said, ‘ ‘Don’t stay very long, because there are 
the other trays to take up. But you might just talk 
to her a little. She is a nice lady, and it is lonely for 
her up there, all by herself. ’ ’ 

This made it all the easier for Peggy, and she started 
upstairs, thinking how luckily it had all turned out. 

It took her quite a long time to reach the top story. 
There were four flights of stairs to each story, and 
each flight had ten steps. Four times ten times thir- 
teen are five hundred and twenty all the world over, 
and if you ever try going up five hundred and twenty 
stairs with a rather heavy tea-tray in your hands you 
will find that it is no light matter. However, Peggy 
got to the top at last, with one or two rests on the way 


PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 143 


— But wait a minute. She did not have to go up the 
last two flights of stairs, which would have led to the 
roof, so that takes twenty off the total, and makes ex- 
actly five hundred steps, which is almost as serious as 
five hundred and twenty. 

She put the tray on the floor outside while she un- 
locked the door. Then she knocked at it, and a voice 
inside said, “Come in.” 

She opened the door a little, took up the tea-tray 
from the floor, and then pushed the door open with her 
elbow and went in. 

The room was much like the one downstairs, and 
was quite as comfortably furnished, but was without 
the pot-plants which made theirs so bright and gay. 
So that it did look rather bare, and not altogether un- 
like a prison, in spite of the large window, which 
showed a magnificent view of the country. But per- 
haps what gave it the air of being a prison was not 
that, but the sad figure of the lady doll that was sit- 
ting in a chair by the window. 

Peggy knew that it must he the Queen, directly she 
saw her. Indeed, it was surprising that neither Mr. 
nor Mrs. Emma had guessed who the prisoner on the 
top story really was. 

For she looked very royal. She was most delicately 



She 


looked very royal 


144 


/ 














PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 145 


made of wax, and looked a little faded, which would 
have been accounted for by her great age. But she 
was beautiful, too, with young features ; for, of course, 
dolls do not grow old like human beings, and 
when they are in Toyland even breakages do not 
count. 

She wore a dress of rich brocade embroidered with 
seed pearls, rather like those that you see in pictures 
of Queen Elizabeth. It was quite possible that she 
might have been born about the same time as Queen 
Elizabeth, which would have made her very interesting, 
if she had had a good memory, and could have talked 
about all the changes she had seen. But dolls’ mem- 
ories are short, and Peggy did not find out how old the 
Queen really was, and, indeed, it would not have been 
good manners to ask. 

When Peggy came in with the tea-tray, the Queen 
looked surprised, and said, in a sad but gentle voice, 
“Who are you? Have you come to take me home? 
Why am I kept locked up here?” 

Peggy put the tray down on the table, and said, “I 
am Peggy, your Majesty. Wooden brought me to 
Toyland. You said that she might.” 

“Why do you call me your Majesty?” asked the 
Queen. “They said that if anybody called me that, 


146 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


or I told anybody who I was, I should be locked up 
in a dungeon where I could not see the light.’ ’ 

Peggy felt desperately sorry for her. She had 
called her “Your Majesty’ ’ quite naturally, for she 
was very royal, both in appearance and manner, al- 
though she was only a doll. It seemed quite dreadful 
that she should be locked up there, and be threatened 
with still worse imprisonment, and for no fault of her 
own at all. 

“I know that you are the Queen,” Peggy said, “and 
I hope that you will soon be back in your beautiful 
palace again. They are making plans outside to res- 
cue you.” 

“I can’t understand it,” said the poor Queen, pass- 
ing her hand wearily over her brow. “I have always 
been as nice as I could to everybody. And yet they 
told me that the people hate me, because I am Wax, 
and don’t want me to be their Queen any longer.” 

‘ ‘ That isn ’t true, ’ ’ said Peggy. ‘ 4 That wicked Selim 
has told everybody that you are dead, and that you said 
that he was to be King after you.” 

“Oh, I never said that,” said the Queen indignantly. 
“How can he have said such a thing? I never said 
anything like it.” 

“That is what he has given out,” said Peggy. “It 


PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 147 


was Rose who made it up. She is as wicked as he is.” 

The Queen thought for a little time, looking out of 
the window at the beautiful view of her own kingdom. 
Then she looked at Peggy searchingly and said, ‘ 4 Isn’t 
it true that my people hate me because I am Wax, and 
want to have a Wooden King and Queen in my place? 
Rose told me that Selim was going to marry Wooden, 
who brought you here. I was very sorry to hear that, 
because I have always liked Wooden, and I didn’t think 
she would want to take my place. ’ ’ 

“Oh, she doesn’t,” said Peggy, speaking as indig- 
nantly as the Queen had done. “Nobody will be more 
pleased to hear that you are really alive. And she 
doesn’t want to marry Selim. She hates him. Why, 
he has actually sent her to prison, because she said she 
didn’t want to marry him. ” 

The Queen looked out of the window and did not speak 
for some time. Then she said, “I was kind to Selim. 
When he was brought to me after he had been 
wrecked, and had lost everything that he had, I gave 
him apartments in my own royal palace, and money 
every month from my treasury.” 

“He is bad and wicked,” said Peggy. “And Rose 
is bad, too. She used to be mine once, and I never 
liked her. Now I know why.” 


148 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“I didn’t like her either,” said the Queen. “She 
wanted to be my lady-in-waiting. She said that I 
ought to have one Composition at least, and not all 
Waxes round me. But I said no. Perhaps I would 
have a Wood, so as to please the Woods. I chose 
Wooden herself, and I was going to appoint her when 
I fell ill. You are sure that it is not true that the 
Woods hate me?” 

Peggy assured her again that it was not true, and 
she seemed much relieved. “I will not say anything 
about Selim and Rose,” she said, in a stately kind of 
way that was more effective than if she had said how 
wicked she thought they were. “When I get back my 
throne, and put on my crown again, I shall know what 
to do. My people have always been good, and I will 
not have them taught to tell untruths and to deceive . 9 9 
She smiled gently at Peggy. “Why, what would you 
think of us over there?” she asked, “if you could not 
trust us?” 

This made Peggy see how trustworthy dolls really 
were. If they are ever naughty, it is only because 
their mistresses like to make them pretend to be, just 
for fun. And they are never really naughty, and soon 
get over whatever little trouble there may be with 
them, and are good and obedient again. Peggy won- 


PEGGY TALKS TO A ROYAL PRISONER 149 


dered now whether all this might not be owing to the 
wise and temperate rule of Queen Rosebud. Perhaps 
if Selim were to go on ruling it might all be altered, 
and dolls might become as bad as some human beings. 

44 I am sure when the people know you are alive,” 
she said, 4 4 they will very soon take you back to your 
palace. And they will be most awfully glad to have 
you reigning over them again.’ ’ 

4 4 Well, you must tell them,” said the Queen. 44 1 
can wait here a little longer in patience, now that I 
know things are to be put right. And I am very 
pleased to see you here, my dear; but I wish you had 
come at a happier time. ’ ’ 

Peggy had never before conversed with a Queen, or 
indeed with any royal person, though she had once 
seen her own King and Queen driving through Lon- 
don; but she knew somehow that she was being dis- 
missed from the presence. She kissed the Doll- 
Queen’s hand, which she had read somewhere was the 
proper way to behave, and went out of the room, leav- 
ing Queen Rosebud sitting by the window. 

As she went down the five hundred steps, she thought 
it was rather extraordinary that the Queen had not 
said anything about the way in which she was to be 
rescued. She had seemed to take it for granted that 


150 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


when her people knew what had happened, everything 
would come right for her. She could leave the details 
to them. 

This seemed to Peggy rather royal, too, and also 
that she had not grumbled at all about her imprison- 
ment. Though she w T as only a doll, Peggy had gained 
a great respect for Queen Rosebud. 



XI 


THE RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 

Peggy went down to the kitchen. She had time as 
she went down the five hundred stairs, to make up 
her mind as to whether she should tell Mr. and Mrs. 
Emma that the Wax lady on the top floor was the 
Queen. She decided not to do so just yet, but to wait 
a little longer and see what happened. They might 
be very indignant at hearing what Selim and Rose had 
done, but on the other hand they might be frightened 
that they would be punished for having let Peggy see 
such an important prisoner; and in that case they 
would probably not let her see her again. And Peggy 
wanted to see Queen Rosebud again. 

When Peggy went into the kitchen Mrs. Emma said, 
“You have been a long time away, but I know it takes 
a long time to go up and down those stairs. How did 
you find the lady f I hope she liked the tea I sent her. 
I gave her some bread and honey instead of bread and 
butter. ’ ’ 

Peggy thought this rather remarkable, as she re- 
membered the nursery rhyme about the Queen being 

151 



Before she could reply Mrs. Emma went on 


152 


ma 


RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 153 


in her parlour eating bread and honey. She won- 
dered whether Mrs. Emma had any suspicion of the 
prisoner being the Queen. 

Before she could reply Mrs. Emma went on, “I was 
just saying to my husband that she is very like what 
Queen Rosebud was, except for her crown. Queen 
Rosebud had no sisters, but I shouldn’t be at all sur- 
prised if she didn’t turn out to be a sort of cousin. 
If you think that is likely, I shall ask her to write her 
name in my birthday book. ’ ’ 

So she seemed to have no suspicion of the truth ; but 
that seemed to be only because the Queen was not 
wearing her crown. 

‘ ‘ It would be nice to have her name in your book , 9 9 
said Peggy. “ Shall I take up the other tray now?” 

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Emma. “And then will you 
please bring the keys down? You have been very kind 
helping us, but of course we must not forget that you 
are a prisoner.” 

Peggy smiled to herself as she went upstairs again. 
If she took the keys down, their room would not be 
locked, and she would hardly be a prisoner. But she 
did not say anything, as she thought that if the door 
was left unlocked she might take Wooden or Lady 
Grace, or both of them, up to see the Queen. 


154 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


The dolls were interested in what she told them, but 
they were now quite used to the idea of Queen Rose- 
bud being alive, and showed less excitement at her 
news than Peggy had expected. While she had been 
away, they seemed to have been talking about the fail- 
ure of the plan concocted by Teddy and Colonel Jim, 
and to have agreed that Teddy had not behaved well 
in telling Colonel Jim that Mr. Emma would say, 
“With pleasure/ ’ when he asked him if he could go up 
to the top story. For Mr. Emma had said quite the 
opposite. 

“I always knew Teddy was flighty/ ’ said Wooden, 
“but I did not think that he would go so far as to tell 
a story.” 

‘ ‘ So many people seem to be telling them now, ’ ’ said 
Lady Grace sadly. “It is very dreadful.” 

“But Teddy didn’t tell a story,” said Peggy. “He 
only thought that Mr. Emma would say that, and told 
Colonel Jim so.” 

Wooden’s aunt, who was already very busy with 
her tea, slapped her knee, and said, with a mouth full 
of bread and butter, “There now! Didn’t I say the 
very same thing? I was the only one as stuck up for 
Teddy. I said he wouldn’t tell a lie, because I knowed 
he wouldn’t.” 


RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 155 


“You didn’t say what Peggy says he told Colonel 
Jim,” said Wooden’s mother. “Are you sure he said 
that, dear?” 

“Yes,” said Peggy stoutly. “That is what he must 
have said.” 

“Well, I am sure I am very glad to hear it,” said 
Wooden, with a sigh of relief. “I know you wouldn’t 
tell a story, dear, and if you say that is what Teddy 
said, of course he said it. I am very glad he didn’t 
tell a story, as I shouldn’t like to think ill of him. I 
suppose you couldn’t tell us what Rose really said, 
could you? I have never liked her, but you did ex- 
change her for me over there, and I have always felt 
sorry for her, because the exchange was such a good 
thing for me. I should like not to think badly of her, 
if I could.” 

“Rose has told nothing but stories,”’ said Peggy de- 
cisively. ‘ ‘ She really wicked, and when Queen Rose- 
bud comes to the throne again I hope she will do some- 
thing to her. I am very glad I did exchange her for 
you, dear Wooden, especially now I know what she is 
really like. ’ ’ 

“Perhaps if she had stayed with you she might not 
have been so wicked,” said Wooden; and Peggy 
thought this was a great compliment from a doll, be- 


156 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


cause in some ways they are better than human beings. 
Of course they have not so many temptations to be 
naughty, but I am not sure that they don’t resist the 
temptations that they do have better than a good many 
humans. Rose was quite an exception, and as for 
Selim, he wasn’t a proper doll at all, and had spent 
his active life in being so harried about a chess board, 
with hectoring Queens, and heavy Castles, and sliding 
Bishops, and hopping Knights, and perky little Pawns 
always giving him check, and he not able to move more 
than one square at a time, that perhaps it was no 
wonder that he would do anything to get into a posi- 
tion in which he could really act like a King. How- 
ever, I am far from excusing his abominable behaviour 
at this particular time, and think that Peggy was quite 
right in hoping that he would come to be soundly pun- 
ished for it. 

When they had nearly finished their tea, footsteps 
and voices were heard coming up the stairs, and to 
their surprise the Lord Chancellor came into the room, 
followed by Mr. Emma. 

The Lord Chancellor looked annoyed, and Mr. Emma 
looked frightened. Peggy guessed at once that this 
was because the Lord Chancellor had found out about 
Mr. Emma giving her his keys. 


RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 157 


She was right. As they came into the room, the 
Lord Chancellor said, “I dare say the young lady did 



want to see your baby. Nobody knows better than I 
do, from long experience of the law, that young ladies 
like to see babies, and you have nothing to teach me 



158 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


about that. But you had no right whatever to lend 
her your keys, and allow her to go in and out of this 
room as she pleases.’ ’ 

When he had said this he changed his expression 
of face completely, and smiled at Peggy and the four 
dolls. “Well, ladies,” he said, “I am glad to see you 
all looking so well, and I expect you are glad to see 
me looking well. I should say now that none of you 
have been in the least inconvenienced by your visit to 
this handsome building.” 

He said this as if he were inviting them to agree 
with him, and added, “Why, for part of the time you 
haven’t even had the door locked, which must have 
taken away the idea of a prison from your minds alto- 
gether.” 

Peggy thought this was rather cool, considering they 
had just heard him scolding Mr. Emma for letting 
them have the door unlocked. While the Lord Chan- 
cellor had been speaking, Mr. Emma had been making 
signs to her in a pathetic imploring sort of way, point- 
ing up to the ceiling and at her and himself and the 
Lord Chancellor and the tea-tray on the table, and 
making words at her with his mouth, none of which she 
could understand. But suddenly she understood by 
his signs what he wanted to convey to her. He was 


RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 159 


begging her not to tell the Lord Chancellor that she 
had carried the tray up to the top story. So she 
nodded her head and put her finger on her mouth to 
assure him that she would keep his secret, for she did 
not want to get him into further trouble. He seemed 
a little soothed by this, but still very dejected, as he 
stood with his head on one side behind the Lord Chan- 
cellor. 

“If I had not made it a rule of life never to take 
tea twice on the same day,” said the Lord Chancellor, 
“I should feel inclined to ask you for a cup. I assure 
you that this is better tea than I drank at my own 
house half an hour ago. Really, I feel inclined to wish 
that I could be sent to the House of Cards myself, for 
a short time. I doubt if there is a more comfortable 
place in the whole of Dolltown. Now, confess, ladies. 
Haven ’t you found it so?” 

“ We have nothing to complain of in our treatment,” 
said Wooden, in a polite and simple but yet dignified 
way. “But nobody likes to be in prison, and I would 
rather go without my tea altogether than have it and 
be shut up.” 

The Lord Chancellor seemed delighted with this 
speech. “Now, it is a most extraordinary thing,” he 
said, “that you should express those sentiments. I 


160 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


was half afraid, when I came in, that yon would be so 
delighted with your present situation that you would 
not want to exchange it for another. In fact, I thought 
you might even refuse to do so. I am very glad indeed 
that I was mistaken. For I have come to tell you 
that his most gracious Majesty, moved by one or two 
things that I have said to him, has instructed me to 
release you and Peggy. Now, don’t tell me — please 
don’t tell me — that you would rather stay where you 
are.” 

“No, I shall not,” said Wooden. “I am very glad to 
be let out of prison. I ought never to have been sent 
here. None of us ought. Are my mother and aunt 
and Lady Grace still to be kept here ? ’ ’ 

“If she and Peggy go, I go,” said Wooden’s aunt. 
“That’s flat.” 

“You will go by-and-by,” said the Lord Chancellor 
in a soothing voice. “Leave it to me, and I will ar- 
range it all. But I ’m afraid you three others will have 
to stay here a little longer. Lady Grace is Wax, you 
see, and the order for releasing Waxes has not yet 
been given. But it will be. You needn’t have the 
slightest doubt about that. Just have patience for a 
little; that’s all.” 

“Well, I ain’t Wax,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I’m 


KELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 161 


Wood, and proud of it. What’s the matter with me 
being let out?” 

“Well,” said the Lord Chancellor, “the fact is that 
the King is still rather annoyed with you for think- 
ing of such a thing as him marrying you. ’ ’ 

“I don’t think of it no more,” said Wooden’s aunt. 
“I don’t want to marry the old heathen image. You 
tell him that, Mr. Lawyer, with Wooden’s aunt’s 
comps.” 

“Certainly, I will,” said the Lord Chancellor, with 
a polite bow. ‘ ‘ It may make all the difference ; there ’s 
no telling.” 

“Am I to stay in prison?” asked Wooden’s mother. 
“If so, I think it is very unfair. I’ve done nothing.” 

“I hinted as much to his Majesty,” said the Lord 
Chancellor, “but he said two out at a time was enough. 
So I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you. You’ll 
be let out all in good time, and you are so comfortable 
here that it hardly makes any difference whether it’s 
sooner or later.” 

“You keep on saying that like a Poll-parrot,” said 
Wooden’s aunt. “I’ve no patience with you. You go 
back and tell your master that if I ain ’t let out of this 
in an hour’s time I’ll yell the place down. So there 
now ! ’ ’ 


162 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“I will be sure to convey your message, madam/ ’ 
said the Lord Chancellor, as politely as before. 4 ‘ Now, 
I think we might make a start, eh?” He turned to- 
wards Emma, and his face became severe once more. 
“As for you, sir,” he said, “I shall have you dis- 
missed from your post. You have given your keys to 
a prisoner. That is the most serious offence you could 
have committed.” 

Poor Mr. Emma threw himself on his knees and held 
up his hands in supplication. “Oh, don’t dismiss me, 
your Honour,” he cried, “I’ve got a wife and a dear 
little baby, and you wouldn’t want them to starve, now 
would you? You’ve got a kind face; and a kind heart 
goes with it — I know it do. Don’t turn me off ; please 
don’t.” 

The Lord Chancellor’s face became softer. “It is 
quite true that I have a kind face,” he said. “Many 
people have remarked the same thing before now, and 
some of them have even gone so far as to say that for 
my age it is a handsome face. Of course that was only 
said in compliment, I know; I don’t wish to make too 
much of it; but it does show that there is something 
in my face that strikes people, and I don’t wonder that 
it has struck you. Well, now, about dismissing you 
from your post — if I could find a way out of it !” 


RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN 163 


He looked at Peggy, as if he expected her to help 
him, but for the moment she couldn’t think of any- 
thing. 

“Of course you have committed a serious fault,” 
he said to Mr. Emma, who had risen from his knees 
and was waiting to hear what was to be done to him, 
with a mournful expression on his face. “Prisoners 
are entrusted to you, and you are right in treating 
them as well as you can. But you have treated this 
young lady as if she weren’t a prisoner at all.” 

“But I am not a prisoner,” said Peggy. “You have 
said yourself that I am not. ’ ’ 

The Lord Chancellor’s face lightened. “Now, why 
didn’t I think of that?” he said. “It makes all the 
difference. Mr. Emma, you have committed no fault 
whatever. In fact, by carrying out his Majesty’s 
wishes at the earliest possible moment, you have shown 
yourself a zealous servant of the Crown, and I shall 
have much pleasure in recommending you for a rise 
in wages.” 

So that matter was settled in the most satisfactory 
fashion, and Peggy was pleased to see Mr. Emma 
cheer up and look proud of himself, as if he had done 
something particularly clever. 

She and Wooden said good-bye to the others, who 


164 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


did not seem so disappointed at still being kept in 
prison as might have been expected. There are many 
advantages in being a doll, and one of them is that 
they have snch a lot of time before them that they are 
a good deal more patient than we are when things are 
not going well for them. They know that the bad time 
will end, and are content to wait till it does. Peggy 
managed to whisper to Lady Grace that she would do 
all she could to set things right and get the Queen out 
of prison. Then, of course, she would come out, too, 
and be restored to her post as lady-in-waiting. Wood- 
en’s aunt was still eating and drinking in great enjoy- 
ment, and Wooden’s mother, after kissing them fare- 
well, said that she should have a little nap, and when 
she woke up perhaps she would be let out. 



XII 


PEGGY STAYS IN A REAL DOLLS ’ HOUSE 

Peggy had only stayed a very short time in prison, 
and had been so much interested in all that had hap- 
pened there that she had hardly been able to think 
of herself in prison at all, but she was none the less 
pleased to be in the open street and free to go any- 
where. They were going first of all to Wooden’s 
house, which was in the chief residential quarter of 
Dolltown, near the royal palace. 

The news of the imprisonment of a human child, 
and of four dolls, two at least of whom were highly 
respected, must have spread; for as they walked along 
everybody seemed to recognize them, and they were 
followed by an ever increasing crowd of dolls, who 
seemed to be greatly excited by their reappearance. 
The Lord Chancellor was in a high state of delight at 
the attention they were receiving. If he had a fault, 
it was a slight but excusable vanity. By his own la- 
bours he had raised himself to his present proud posi- 
tion, and thought it only natural that everybody who 

165 


166 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


saw him should be extremely interested in him. He 
was generally accompanied by his secretary when he 
walked about the streets of Dolltown, so that if he hap- 
pened to go unrecognized the secretary could tell the 
people who he was. But this time he had left him 
behind, to write out the notes he had taken in the Hall 
of Audience, and walked alone with Peggy and 
Wooden. 

He certainly received a great deal of attention, and 
was at first very pleased with it, as I have said. But 
by-and-by he became a good deal less pleased. 

For the crowd was not so good-tempered as it had 
been when they had all walked to prison together. 
Most of the dolls that composed it made a lot of fuss 
over Peggy and Wooden, whom they were pleased to 
see let out of prison, but they did not seem at all 
pleased to see the Lord Chancellor, and he had to listen 
to some unpleasant remarks about himself for his share 
in what had happened. 

These remarks caused him a good deal of pain, and, 
when he understood that he was not sharing in the 
popularity that Peggy and Wooden enjoyed, he began 
to explain to everybody who would listen to him that 
he had been against sending anybody to prison from 
the first, and that it was entirely owing to him that 


IN A REAL DOLLS ’ HOUSE 


167 


Peggy and Wooden had been let out. But nobody did 
listen to him very carefully, and one rather rude Dutch 
doll actually said to him, “Oh, dry up, you* silly old 
fool, and don’t talk so much.” This distressed him 
very much. He had never in his life been called a silly 
old fool before, and the phrase rankled. He did not 
try to excuse himself any more, but kept on repeat- 
ing “silly old fool” under his breath, so as to see if 
it was really as bad as it sounded. 

Wooden’s house was situated in a handsome ter- 
race, which had a gate and a little wooden lodge at 
each end of it, to keep the houses private. This was a 
good thing, for the crowd had to stay outside the gates. 
It was nice to have them so enthusiastic, but they might 
have made themselves a nuisance if they had swarmed 
about the house itself, and looked in at the windows, 
and dirtied the front door steps. 

Wooden had told Peggy what a nice house she had, 
and was pleased to be able to show it to her. It was 
a handsome, rather old-fashioned, wooden dolls ’ house 
of three stories and six rooms, with a staircase running 
up the middle. It was nicely furnished, too, with 
beautifully-made dolls’ furniture and ornaments. Any 
little girl would have been overjoyed at having such a 
dolls’ house given to her to play with. To Peggy it 



168 







IN A KEAL DOLLS’ HOUSE 


169 


was even more delightful than if she had had it as a 
toy, because it was of a size that made it possible for 
her to use it as a real house. Instead of putting her 
hand inside the rooms with great care, so as not to 
disturb the arrangements, she could go into all the 
rooms herself and use the things in them. 

I know that it is not customary in stories to talk 
about the rooms and furniture of a house before your 
characters have entered it; but in this case it is all 
right, because the front of the house stood open, and 
Peggy saw nearly everything inside it before they 
went in. 

The rooms were a good deal larger than those in 
most dolls ’ houses. I mean not only larger because 
the house had grown up, so to speak, but because 
they would hold more dolls and more furniture. In 
a dolls ’ house it is sometimes awkward to have a doll 
or a piece of furniture that takes up nearly the whole 
of a room, and even in good ones it does not often 
happen that the rooms are big enough to accommo- 
date many dolls, or more than a few pieces of furni- 
ture. But there was quite a lot of furniture in the 
rooms of Wooden’s house, and although they were all 
square, and of the same size, which gave them a certain 


170 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


lack of variety, they would comfortably hold quite a 
large number of dolls. 

On the ground floor were a kitchen and a dining- 
room, on the first floor a drawing-room and the best 
bedroom, and on the top floor a servants’ room and a 
spare room. Wooden pointed them out as they walked 
up the terrace, and said that as long as Peggy stayed 
with her she should give her the best bedroom, because 
it had the best furniture in it, and use the spare room 
for herself. 

It was just like Wooden to offer to do this, but Peggy 
said no, she wouldn’t hear of it. She could not see 
the furniture of the spare room from where they were, 
as it was too high up, but she was sure it was good 
enough for her. 

It may seem a little odd that Wooden should have 
spoken as if they were going to stay in Toyland, if not 
for ever, at least for some time. For Peggy had un- 
derstood that the dolls who were still played with by 
children only went to Toyland when it was night — 
‘ ‘ over there,” as they would have said. But it did not 
seem odd to her, and in fact she never thought about 
it. Once in Toyland, the dolls who inhabited that 
pleasant country behaved as if they always lived there. 
It seemed to come from the air of the place ; and that 


IN A REAL DOLLS’ HOUSE 


171 


explains why Peggy never once thought of going home 
again as long as she was there, any more than Wooden 
or any of the other dolls did. 

The weather was tine and warm, which would have 
made it nice to have the front of the house open, al- 
though a little wanting in privacy. But W ooden said, 
“I should like you to go in through the front door, 
dear. It is a beautiful door, and it seems a pity not 
to use it. So I think I will have the front of the house 
shut. ’ ’ 

Two wooden servant dolls, a cook and a housemaid, 
dressed one in a blue, the other in a black frock, with 
snowy white caps and aprons, had been standing in 
front of the kitchen looking out for them. Wooden 
told them to shut the front of the house, and they 
came out and did so, pushing it back quite easily. 
For they were good servants and devoted to their 
mistress, and kept the hinges well oiled. 

When the front of the house was shut it looked very 
handsome indeed. The door that Wooden was so 
proud of was inside a fine porch, and had a brass 
knocker on it. All the windows had little panes of 
glass, kept beautifully clean, and white curtains looped 
up inside them. And each of them had a neat iron 
railing in front of it to hold flowers. It was like a 


172 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


real house, and yet it was like a dolls’ house, too, which 
made it all the more fascinating. 

They went up two steps under the porch, and 
'Wooden knocked with the knocker, to show that it was 
a real knocker. The doll housemaid opened the door, 
and they went in. For the first time in her life, nat- 
urally, Peggy was inside a real dolls’ house, with the 
front shut and even the door shut. Hitherto she had 
only been able to see what it was like by peeping in 
through the windows; for of course you know that a 
dolls’ house can never be quite the same with its front 
open. It takes away from the make-believe. She felt 
frightfully pleased; and it really was nice, and not a 
bit like a real house, although everything in it was of 
an ordinary real size. 

The Lord Chancellor had come in with them. He 
had told Wooden that he had had a lot of running 
about and should like to rest a little. But, of course, 
what he really wanted was to get away from the crowd, 
and go home later on when it should have dispersed* 
But Wooden said that it was an honour to entertain 
him in her own house, which pleased him, and by the 
time they had got inside he had recovered some of his 
spirits, and seemed ready to be as talkative as ever. 

Wooden led the way up to the drawing-room, which 


IN A KEAL DOLLS' ’ HOUSE 


173 


had a carpet of a very large pattern and a wall paper 
with enormous roses on it. The furniture was beau- 
tifully made, but Peggy felt that she was really sit- 
ting on a dolls’ sofa and not on an ordinary one, al- 
though it was comfortable, and of an ordinary size. 



Nothing was quite the same. The mirrors had tin 
frames, the books on the tables were evidently toy 
books, with thick leaves and bindings that did not keep 
quite flat ; and there were some packs of cards and some 
dominoes on another table looking exactly like those 
very tiny ones which you can buy in shops, but are 


174 PEGGY IN TOYLAND 

so small that you do not want to play with them more 
than once. 

They had hardly sat down, Peggy and Wooden on 
the sofa and the Lord Chancellor on a large chair, 
before the doll housemaid opened the door and 
announced a visitor, by the name of Mrs. Wini- 
fred. 

Mrs. Winifred was a mature-looking Dutch doll. 
Most of the wooden dolls in Toyland were of Dutch 
extraction, even Wooden herself, just like many of 
the old families of New York, but they were no more 
Dutch than the New Yorkers are. She came forward 
and kissed Wooden, and said she was very glad she had 
come out of prison, and she felt that she must come 
round at once and tell her so. 

Mrs. Winifred had hardly been accommodated with 
a seat before Mrs. Hilda was announced, and when 
Mrs. Hilda had said the same as Mrs. Winifred, Cap- 
tain and Mrs. Louisa were announced. Captain 
Louisa was an officer in a regiment of wooden soldiers, 
and wore his uniform. His wife and Mrs. Hilda were 
wooden dolls like Mrs. Winifred. These were fol- 
lowed by Mr. and Mrs. Joyce, Mr. and Mrs. Ida, Mrs. 
Mollie, Mrs. Jane, and one or two more, all of the best 
wooden families of Dolltown, and it was evidently a 


IN A REAL DOLLS’ HOUSE 175 

source of great pride to Wooden that they should show 
such a nice feeling towards her. 

She introduced them all to Peggy, and those who 
did not know him to the Lord Chancellor. There were 
so many of them that it was like a sort of party. The 
dolls sat rather stiffly in their chairs, and there were 
other little points about them, such as their knees 
showing rather prominently through their skirts and 
trousers, which made it seem like a dolls’ party, and as 
if they were all playing at something. This pleased 
Peggy. She felt as if she had set them all down her- 
self on their chairs and on the sofas, exactly where she 
wanted them to be, as she did sometimes with her 
smaller dolls in her dolls’ house at home, and pre- 
tended that they were talking politely to each other. 



XIII 


THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVEB 

The late imprisonment of Peggy and Wooden, and 
especially of Wooden, naturally formed the chief sub- 
ject of conversation. 

“I must say,” said Mrs. Winifred, ‘ 4 that I was sur- 
prised to hear that you had been sent to prison, Mrs. 
Wooden. We had all heard that such a very ‘differ- 
ent lot had been prepared for you.” 

‘ ‘ Yes,” said Mrs. Hilda. 4 ‘What we heard was that 
you were to he made Queen and live in the palace. ’ ’ 

“And we were very glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Joyce, 
a thin, rather vinegary-looking doll, whom Peggy did 
not very much take to. “We knew that if you were 
made Queen there would be no more high-and-mighti- 
ness at the palace, and you wouldn’t give yourself airs 
with us.” 

“It would be the beginning of a new era,” said Mr. 
Joyce, who was a members of the Dolls’ Parliament. 
“The Woodens would be no longer oppressed by the 
Waxes, and peace and contentment would reign, where 
before there had been strife and inequality.” 

176 


THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER 177 


“I’m not sure,” said the Lord Chancellor, “that I 
quite agree with that observation. As Woods, all this 
extremely intelligent and entertaining company is nat- 
urally pleased at having a Wooden King to reign over 
Toyland. But under our late lamented Queen Rose- 
bud, as far as my memory carries me back, there was 
no oppression. And personally I boast intimate 
friends amongst dolls of all varieties, from Wax to 
Rag.” 

“What I think,” said Mrs. Mollie, a severe-looking 
doll with a long upper lip, “is that we were a good 
deal better off under Queen Rosebud than we are likely 
to be under King Selim. I don’t hold with these for- 
eigners.” 

The other dolls seemed to be rather taken aback 
by this plainness of speech, and the Lord Chancellor 
said, “Tut, tut! You mustn’t say things like that, my 
dear lady. It isn’t respectful to the Crown.” 

“But it’s what a good many of us are feeling,” 
said Mrs. Winifred. “At first it was very nice to 
feel we were considered as good as the Waxes. In 
this company there’s no harm in saying that Waxes 
do give themselves airs, and it isn’t nice to feel you 
are considered common, when you know you are noth- 
ing of the sort, but quite the opposite.” 


178 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“But all Waxes don’t give themselves airs,” said 
Wooden, speaking for the first time. “There’s Lady 



Grace, now. Both of us live with this dear little girl 
when we’re over there, and we are real friends, and 



THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER 179 


there’s never a word awry between ns. And it’s the 
same here.” 

“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Ida, a young-looking doll 
who was dressed more fashionably than the rest, ‘ 4 that 
I have always got on as well as possible with the 
Waxes. In fact, most of my friends were Wax before 
they were all sent to prison.” 

“I should think you must feel a bit lonely, then,” 
said Mrs. Jane. 4 ‘I’ve always associated with Woods 
myself, and prefer their company.” 

“The best company in Toyland,” said Mrs. Wini- 
fred, “is to be found amongst the higher classes of 
Woods. Still, I’m against this sending to prison of 
all Waxes, whether they give themselves airs or 
not.” 

“It isn’t so much the shutting up of Waxes that I 
object to,” said Mrs. Louisa. “It’s the shutting up 
of Woods. How did it come about, Wooden, that 
instead of marrying the King you were sent to 
prison?” 

Captain Louisa cleared his throat behind his hand. 
“Manners, my dear, manners!” he whispered to his 
wife. 

“We don’t want to go into all that,” said the Lord 
Chancellor. “Perhaps a slight mistake was made ; but 


180 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


it has now been put right, chiefly owing to representa- 
tions made to his Majesty by myself.” 

“It hasn’t been put right, and we do want to talk 
about it,” said Mrs. Mollie. “There are two Wooden 
dolls still locked up in the House of Cards, to say noth- 
ing of a Wax one. What were they locked up for, and 
when are they going to be let out ? ’ ’ 

She addressed her question directly to the Lord 
Chancellor, and there seemed to be a general opinion 
amongst the other dolls that it was right to ask it, 
and that it wanted an answer. 

The Lord Chancellor gave one. He gave it at great 
length, but there was not much in it. It seemed that 
all they had to do was to trust to him, and everything 
would come right in the end. 

“That doesn’t satisfy me,” said Mrs. Mollie, when 
he had quite finished. “And it isn’t only Woods either 
that have been sent to prison, and are being kept there 
for nothing at all. What about this human child? 
What was she sent to prison for? I’m against send- 
ing human children to prison when they are allowed 
to come over and visit us. It’s likely to make bad 
feeling over there.” 

There were murmurs of approval at this, and all 


THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER 181 


the dolls looked sympathetically at Peggy, who felt 
rather shy. 

“You are quite right, Mrs. Mollie,” said Captain 
Louisa. “And I may tell you in strict confidence that 
the army feels with you about it. It is the best army 
to he found anywhere. Leads and Woods alike are 
devoted to their duty, and quite ready for a war, if 
a war is forced on us. But we don’t want a war with 
the people over there. We should win, of course, in 
the long run, but it would leave bad blood behind it, 
and while it was going on our women and children 
wouldn’t be safe.” 

“It’s a prospect I don’t like at all,” said Mrs. Wini- 
fred. “I have received nothing but kindness from 
Humans, myself, and I believe the same may be said 
by most of us here. I say that Peggy ought not to 
have been locked up, and I hope she will remember that 
I said that when she goes back. Mrs. Winifred, 4 
Prospect Place, Dolltown, are my name and address, 
and over there I may be found at any time at Top 
Drawer, Day Nursery Chest, 43 Hamilton Square, 
London, S.W.” 

All the other dolls hastened to give Peggy their 
names and addresses, except Mr. Joyce, who said, 


182 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“My peace-loving sentiments are well known, and no- 
body over there is likely to make any mistake about 
them. I agree with the opinion of this assembly to 
this extent: I believe that a Wood King is the best 
kind of King we could have for Toyland, but I’m not 
at all sure that King Selim is the right doll in the 
right place, or that this reign is likely to be an im- 
provement on the last. Wax or no Wax, Queen Rose- 
bud would never have made the mistakes in foreign 
policy that have already been made in this reign. If 
we are not very careful, this young lady, and others 
who may come over to visit us, will carry back a re- 
port that may bring serious trouble. King Selim 
ought to be told that.” 

“For my part, I’ve no patience with King Selim,” 
said Mrs. Mollie. “I heartily wish Queen Rosebud 
wasn’t dead.” 

“But Queen Rosebud isn’t dead,” said Wooden. 
“She is locked up in the House of Cards. Peggy took 
her tea up to her this very afternoon.” 

She spoke in a tone of surprise, as if everybody 
ought to know that Queen Rosebud was alive. Peggy 
had been wondering whether it would be a good thing 
to tell the dolls what she had discovered, and now 
that Wooden had let it out, she was rather glad. She 


I 


THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER 183 


didn’t much like keeping such a secret to herself, and, 
of course, a doll is hardly capable of keeping any se- 
cret, and Wooden had only not spoken before because 
she had got used to the idea of Queen Rosebud being 
alive, and had not thought much about it since. 1 

“Oh, my dear lady!” said the Lord Chancellor, be- 
fore anybody could speak. “You mustn’t say a thing 
like that, you know. King Selim has said that Queen 
Rosebud is dead and of course she must be dead.” 

“But she isn’t,” Wooden persisted. “Peggy has 
seen her.” 

“Yes, I did,” said Peggy. “She is in the top story 
of the House of Cards. Selim and Rose had her locked 
up there, and they said that if she told anybody who 
she was they would put her in a dark dungeon. They 
are both very wicked.” 

“Well, that’s beyond everything!” said Mrs. Wini- 
fred. “And I should like to know who Rose is, to 
go locking up the Queen.” 

“If Waxes like to give themselves airs, that’s one 

thing,” said Mrs. Ida. “But for a Composition ! 

That’s what nobody can stand.” 

“There are Compositions and Compositions,” said 
Mrs. Mollie. “But Rose would be a disgrace to any 
class. She ought to be locked up herself.” 


184 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


“And I think you ought to see to it, Lord Norval,” 
said Mrs. Jane. 4 4 According to Peggy, she has told a 
deliberate falsehood, and that is punishable by law, 
as I’ve always understood. ’ ’ 

They seemed to be in danger of forgetting all about 
Queen Rosebud in their disgust for Rose. But this 
brought them back to the subject. 

4 ‘ I quite agree with you, ’ ’ said the Lord Chancellor. 
“It is a most disgraceful affair altogether. I shall 
inform his Majesty about it at once, and request him 
to see that Rose is properly punished. What I shall 
suggest is that she shall take Queen Rosebud’s place 
in prison. I fancy that would be rather neat, eh? I 
shall press the point on his Majesty.” 

“But Selim is just as bad as she is,” exclaimed 
Peggy. “He ought to be sent to prison, too. Why 
do you call him ‘His Majesty’? He isn’t a King at 
all.” 

‘ ‘ Hush, hush, my dear young lady ! ’ ’ said the Lord 
Chancellor, much shocked. “I know you are human, 
and to be excused on that account, but if one of us 
had said that, it would be punishable, you know. Se- 
lim is a King. He wears a crow:n We have all seen 
it.” 

“He is only a chess king,” said Peggy. “I meant 


THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER 185 


that he isn’t King of Toyland. He can’t be, if Queen 
Rosebud is still alive.” 

“ That’s one way of looking at it, certainly,” said 
the Lord Chancellor, in a puzzled kind of way. “I 
shall have to think about it very carefully when I go 
home. He says he’s King of Toyland. I shall get at 
it better when I’ve slept over it.” 

“But aren’t you going to do anything now?” asked 
Peggy. ‘ ‘ There ’s Queen Rosebud still locked up in the 
House of Cards. 1 think Captain Louisa ought to take 
his soldiers at once, and let her out.” 

All the dolls had sat with puzzled faces, looking at 
Peggy and the Lord Chancellor. They had all been 
ready to talk a great deal, but when it came to doing 
something they seemed quite at a loss. 

Captain Louisa started when his name was men- 
tioned. “If it was my duty, I should do it,” he said. 
“I should do it very well — nobody better.” 

‘ 4 Well, I think it is your duty, ’ ’ said Peggy. ‘ ‘ Don ’t 
you, Wooden?” 

“Well, dear,” said Woods , “if we all did our duty 
as well as Captain Louisa, w. might be very proud 
of ourselves.” 

Captain Louisa looked proudly at Peggy. “You see 
what she thinks of me,” he said. “And it isn’t only 


186 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


me either. My men would follow me anywhere.’ ’ 

Mrs. Winifred rose from her seat. “I’m afraid I 
must say good-bye, dear Mrs. Wooden,” she said. “I 
am so glad you have been let out of prison. And I’m 
so glad that Queen Rosebud isn’t dead. Somehow, I 
could never feel that she was.” 

All the dolls rose one after the other to say good- 
bye. They all said they were glad that Queen Rose- 
bud was alive, and some of them said that she ought 
not to stay in prison a moment longer. But none of 
them seemed interested in how she was to be got out, 
or in what should happen afterwards, except that Mrs. 
Mollie said she hoped Rose would get her deserts, and 
Mrs. Ida said that they saw now what came of Com- 
positions giving themselves airs. However much they 
seemed to be different from one another in their way 
of talking and looking at things, they all seemed alike 
in having no idea of acting for themselves. They 
were very nice, but Peggy thought that if she had been 
the Queen in prison she would hardly have felt so con- 
fident as Queen Rosebud had been of her doll subjects 
getting her out again. 

However, the Lord Chancellor, who stayed behind, 
did seem to think that something ought to be done, 
though he seemed disinclined to do it himself. ‘ 4 When 














All the dolls rose to say good-bye 


187 




188 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


the people get to know of this,” he said, “Pm afraid 
there will be trouble. The question is, how to act so 
as to save trouble.” 

“7 should think the question was how to get poor 
Queen Rosebud out of prison as soon as possible,” said 
Peggy. 

“Well, certainly there is that side of it,” he said. 
“The only thing is that if she comes out of prison and 
goes back to the palace, there will be two of them — a 
King and a Queen — and that is something that it is 
very difficult to know how to deal with, without a great 
deal of careful thought. If King Selim could marry 
Queen Rosebud, now! How does that strike you as 
a way of getting over the difficulty?” 

“It doesn’t strike me at all,” said Peggy. “Selim 
has done a very wicked and horrible thing. Queen 
Rosebud was ill, and she might have died, and if she 
had it would have been all his fault. He has told 
heaps of stories about her. She never told him that 
he was to be King after her at all. That ’s one story. 
And he told the people she was dead. That’s another. 
And he has sent a lot of dolls to prison for nothing 
at all. He has done very wrong, and he ought to be 
punished.” 

“That is a very eloquent speech,” said the Lord 


THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER 189 


Chancellor. “Very eloquent indeed. I wish I could 
make one like it. But you see the trouble is that the 
King can do no wrong; so of course you can’t punish 
him. ’ ’ 

“But he has done wrong/ ’ said Peggy. “And he 
isn’t the King. You keep on talking about him as if 
Queen Rosebud wasn’t alive. She is the Queen. Se- 
lim is only a usurper.” 

“I’m beginning to see it,” said the Lord Chancellor. 
“It’s a very subtle point, but I’m beginning to see it, 
or at least some of it. ’ ’ 

Whether he would have seen all of it in time can- 
not be known, for just at that moment the door was 
opened by the housemaid doll, and in came Colonel 
Jim and Teddy. 



XIV 


THE ESCAPE 

The moment Teddy came into the room, Peggy felt 
that the time for action had come. And she had never 
felt more pleased with him than when he addressed 
himself straight to the Lord Chancellor, and said, 
“Now, then, old man, you come along with us to the 
House of Cards. We’re going to get the Queen out 
of prison, and we want you with us. ’ ’ 

“I’m sure I’m very glad that you propose to adopt 
that course,” said the Lord Chancellor, speaking 
quickly and nervously. “It is exactly what I should 
have recommended myself. But why do you want me 
with you? I should have thought — ” 

“Never mind what you would have thought,” said 
Teddy. “We want you with us because, now the peo- 
ple have found out that old Selim’s a rascal, and the 
Queen isn’t dead, they’ve got their dander up. They’ll 
have some questions to ask, and you can answer them. 
Colonel Jim and me will be too busy. ’ ’ 

This did not seem to suit the Lord Chancellor at 


190 


THE ESCAPE 


191 


all. He began to protest vigorously that he had had 
no more to do with the fraud that Selim had prac- 
tised than anybody else. But Teddy cut him short. 
“If you won’t come of your own accord,” he said, 
“Colonel Jim has a couple of troopers outside who 
will make you. You’d like to come, too, Peggy and 
Wooden. We’ve brought gees for everybody. Come 
along quick. We don’t want to waste any time.” 

He led the way downstairs, and the others followed 
him, Colonel Jim bringing up the rear, and keeping an 
eye on the Lord Chancellor to see that he did not es- 
cape. 

Waiting outside the house were several horses. 
There was Colonel Jim’s black charger, and those of 
his two troopers. These were of lead. There were 
also some composition horses, and a couple of shaggy 
ponies, made of wood and covered with hair, and a 
beautiful cream-coloured one, with a bridle and saddle- 
cloth sewn with gold embroidery. They were all toy 
horses and ponies, but they looked splendidly alive, 
and Peggy was quite delighted to see that the two 
shaggy ponies had side-saddles, for she knew at once 
that one must be meant for her and one for Wooden. 
She loved riding, and thought it would be great fun 
to ride through the streets of Dolltown on a toy pony. 


192 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


Wooden was not used to riding, although Peggy had 
sometimes put her on her rocking-horse at home, so she 
was not altogether without practice. But Teddy as- 
sured her that he had chosen her a very quiet pony, 
and she was so nice, in the way that she always did 
what people wanted her to, that she made no trouble 
about it, and got on very well when she was once helped 
into the saddle. Peggy felt quite at home on her pony, 
and patted its nice shaggy neck. She would have liked 
to have a gallop on it, but that would not be possible 
in the streets of the town. Colonel Jim and his troop- 
ers mounted their chargers, the Lord Chancellor got 
on to one of the composition horses, and Teddy leapt 
on to another straight from the ground, without using 
the stirrup. A royal servant doll, dressed in scarlet 
and gold, led the beautiful cream-coloured pony, which 
was evidently meant for Queen Rosebud. It was a 
good idea to have a sort of little procession on horse- 
back to take her from her prison to her royal palace 
again, and no doubt Teddy had thought of it, for he 
seemed to be the only one who really did things, while 
the other dolls only talked about them. 

What Teddy said about the inhabitants of Doll- 
town being excited over what had happened was quite 
true. The crowd outside the gates of the terrace was 


THE ESCAPE 


193 


larger than ever, and when Peggy and the dolls ap- 
peared amongst them on horseback there was quite 
a commotion. They cheered them all except the Lord 
Chancellor, and they were so angry with him that they 



would probably have pulled him off his horse if he had 
not been riding between the two troopers, who pro- 
tected him. They seemed to have taken the affair 
much more seriously than the dolls who had come to 


194 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


visit Wooden, but then a crowd always is more excited 
about things than a few people, because they work 
each other up. Very likely, if this crowd of dolls had 
had to do something of their own accord, instead of 
shouting at those who were doing it, they would not 
have been very good at it. And if they had pulled the 
Lord Chancellor off his horse, it is doubtful if they 
w T ould have known what to do next. 

The poor Lord Chancellor was terribly upset at the 
way the crowd hissed and booed at him. Peggy heard 
him explaining to the troopers who rode on either side 
of him that nobody was more surprised than he was, 
or more glad either, that Queen Rosebud was alive. 
But they took no notice of him, and the crowd went on 
booing and hissing all the same. 

When they arrived at the market-place, there was a 
square of lead life guardsmen all round the door of the 
House of Cards, to keep the crowd off. The market- 
place was packed full of dolls, shouting and singing, 
and looking up to the top story, where they had heard 
that the Queen was imprisoned. Peggy could see the 
open window at which she had sat ; but she did not ap- 
pear at it. 

What seemed more remarkable still was that there 
was nobody on the balcony of the first floor, either. 



195 



196 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


It might have been thought that Wooden’s aunt, at 
least, would have been there, watching what was going 
on. But there was nobody to be seen. 

They rode into the empty space kept by the sol- 
diers. Teddy whispered something to Colonel Jim, 
who got off his charger and went up the steps and 
knocked at the door. As he waited for a minute be- 
fore it was opened, all the dolls on that side of the 
market-place were quite silent. 

The door was opened by Mr. Emma. Peggy could 
not hear what passed between him and Colonel Jim, 
but presently Colonel Jim turned sharp round and 
came down the steps again. “The Queen’s gone,” he 
said. “So are the other prisoners. Selim and Rose 
came and fetched them half an hour ago.” 

Here was a piece of news! Mr. Emma was sum- 
moned, and made to tell exactly what had happened. 
The Lord Chancellor asked most of the questions, for 
he was out of reach of the crowd and had somewhat 
recovered from his fright. Besides, he was used to 
asking questions, and liked doing it. 

It seemed that Selim had come to the prison in a 
closed carriage, accompanied by Rose; and another 
empty carriage had come with them. He had seemed 
to Mr. Emma to be in a very nervous state, but he had 


THE ESCAPE 


197 


not seen much of him, because he had sat in the car- 
riage all the time, while Rose had gone in to the House 
of Cards, and fetched the Queen down. Mr. Emma 
had not known it was the Queen until this moment, 
for he had kept himself shut up in the House of Cards, 
with Mrs. Emma and the baby, and had not tried to 
find out what the crowd outside was so excited about. 

The Lord Chancellor asked him what the Queen had 
said when she had come downstairs. 

“She didn’t say nothing, your Honour,” said Mr. 
Emma. i ‘ She looked kind of proud-like, and held her 
head high. If she’d had her crown on I should have 
knowed it was the Queen by the way she behaved. ’ ’ 

Well, the Queen had got into the carriage where 
Selim was, and then Rose had gone upstairs and 
fetched down Lady Grace, and Wooden’s mother and 
aunt. Wooden’s aunt had seemed very pleased with 
herself, according to Mr. Emma. She had imitated a 
grand lady mincing down the steps, and said to him, 
“Out of the way, Bobby, we’re going to the palace. 
Haw! Haw!” This had offended Mr. Emma, for he 
had left the police force some time before. 

Rose had got into the first carriage, with the Queen 
and Selim, and the other three had got into the second 
carriage. Then they had all driven away. 


198 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


That was Mr. Emma’s story, and about all that could 
be got out of him. The two carriages had driven off 
in the direction of the palace, and Rose must have told 
Wooden’s aunt that that was where they were going 
to. The carriages were not the gilt and glass coaches 
that were generally used from the palace, but ordi- 
nary landaus. They had not stood before the House 
of Cards very long, and nobody had taken much notice 
of them. A few dolls had seen the Queen come out 
and get into the carriage, but they had not known who 
she was. 

Well, what was to be done now? It seemed plain 
that Selim had found out somehow that the people were 
beginning to find out all about his wickedness, and 
had kidnapped the Queen. Why he had also taken off 
Lady Grace, and Wooden’s mother and aunt, was not 
quite so plain, but perhaps it was because he thought 
they knew too much, and he wanted to get them out 
of the way. 

“What we had better do,” said the Lord Chancellor, 
“is to go back to the palace and interview King Selim. 
I’m all for prompt action in these matters, and I pro- 
pose we start at once. ’ ’ 

“Oh, you silly old thing!” said Teddy. “As if he 


THE ESCAPE 199 

had gone to the palace! You ought to know better 
than that, at your age. ’ ’ 

“But Wooden’s aunt said they were going to the 
palace,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Ybu wouldn’t 
accuse her of telling a lie, I suppose!” 

“Rose told her so,” said Wooden. “You can’t be- 
lieve anything that she says. Aunt would like to think 
she was going to the palace, and Rose must have told 
her that to quiet her.” 

It was rather clever of Wooden to think of this, for 
dolls are apt to believe everything they are told. But 
when a doll has once made herself disbelieved, as Rose 
had done, there is an end of their trusting her. 

“There is a good deal in what you say,” said the 
Lord Chancellor. “But if they have not gone to the 
palace, where have they gone f It might be as well to 
go there and see if anybody knows.” 

They might perhaps have done this, for, although 
Selim would not have been likely to tell anybody where 
he meant to go, still, they might have picked up some 
sort of a clue. But just as they were discussing it, 
our old friend Mr. Noah pushed his way through the 
soldiers who were guarding the square. He was, of 
course, a royal servant, and wore a medal to show it, 


200 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


so they let him through. He brought the important 
information that the two carriages had been seen driv- 
ing fast through the town on the road to the sea. 

Directly Teddy heard this, he gave a whoop, and 
said, “Let’s after them, then, as fast as we can go. 
Come on, all ! ’ ’ He dug his heels into his horse ’s sides, 
and galloped off. The soldiers parted to let him 
through, and the crowd scattered away from him on 
all sides, as he galloped through the streets and was 
lost to sight. 

Now this was all very well. Teddy was anxious to 
catch up the fugitives, but if he did catch them up he 
couldn ’t very well do anything all by himself. Besides, 
he seemed to be about the only one who had any ideas 
in his head — or, at least, ideas that were worth any- 
thing — and if he went off all by himself, the others 
were likely to make a muddle of things. It was his 
“flightiness” coming out, but he had done so well al- 
ready that he might be forgiven for it. 

However, his going off like that was not so bad as 
it might have been. If it had been left to the Lord 
Chancellor to say what was to be done next, it would 
have taken a long time to do anything, and then very 
likely what would have been done would have been 
wrong. And Colonel Jim, though brave as a lion, and 


THE ESCAPE 


201 


handsome, too, was not intellectual. But Mr. Noah 
seemed to have a few ideas in his head, and some spirit 
to carry them out. Of course he was not exactly a 
doll, though he lived in Dolltown, and he had Oriental 
blood in his veins, or whatever fluid dolls do have, and 
this made him rather more clever than might have been 
expected from his wooden expression. He was angry, 
too, at having had orders given him about his Ark by 
Selim, and wanted to get at him and tell him what he 
thought of him. 

Anyhow, as the Lord Chancellor was talking and 
talking, Mr. Noah cut him short. ‘ ‘ What are you wast- 
ing all this time for?” he asked. 4 ‘What we’ve got to 
do is to go after them as quick as we can, and take the 
soldiers with us. Give me a horse, and let ’s be off. ’ ’ 

There was a horse to spare, and Mr. Noah got on to 
it. He looked rather funny in his long yellow robe, 
and being a sort of sailor he was not used to horses. 
But he managed to stick on all right, and as the horse 
was fortunately a quiet one, he soon got used to the 
unusual motion. He said to the others, “Now, you 
come after me!” and without waiting any longer he 
trotted off. 

The others all followed him. Colonel Jim gave some 
orders to his men, and they formed themselves into 


202 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


fours and fell behind. It was quite a gay cavalcade 
that went trotting through the streets of Dolltown, 
and this time the crowd cheered them to the echo, and 
forgot to hiss and boo at the Lord Chancellor. 



XV 


THE PURSUIT 

They trotted along through the streets of the town, 
and soon got clear of the crowd. But the news of 
what had happened had spread all over Dolltown by 
this time, and there were many dolls at the windows 
and on the pavements to see them pass. They did not 
know yet that Selim had kidnapped Queen Rosebud, 
but they knew that she was alive, and that he was a 
usurper. When they saw all the soldiers they knew 
that something stirring was going to happen, and by 
the way they shouted and waved their hands it seemed 
that Selim had very few friends in Dolltown, and had 
better look out for himself if he ever came back there. 

At the end of the town, where the country began, 
there was a gate, and a sentry box beside it, where a 
wooden sentry was keeping guard. They stopped to 
question him. He remembered the two carriages driv- 
ing through the gate, and had wondered who they be- 
longed to. It was not his duty to challenge them, as 
he was there chiefly for ornament; but when Teddy 

203 


204 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


had galloped up, he had asked him, more out of curios- 
ity than anything else, why he was going so fast. 
Teddy had said, ‘ ‘ Open the gate and I ’ll tell you. ’ 9 So 
he had opened the gate, and the moment Teddy had 
got through it he had galloped off again, shouting out 
to the sentry, “Pm going fast because my horse is.” 
Of course this was true, but it had made the sentry 
angry; and he had been still more annoyed when Teddy 
had jumped himself round on his horse, just as if he 
had been a rider in a circus, and ridden away back- 
wards, making long noses at him. The sentry said 
that this was disrespectful to a servant of the Crown, 
and asked the Lord Chancellor to send Teddy to prison 
for it. But they had no time to waste over his griev- 
ances, and set off again. 

They trotted through the country roads, and Peggy 
enjoyed the ride very much. She felt quite safe, with 
all the soldiers riding behind them, but thought it was 
hardly necessary to have brought so many of them, as 
Mr. Noah and Teddy, to say nothing of Colonel Jim 
and his two special troopers, would have been enough 
to take Selim prisoner when they caught up with him. 
But it was a good thing that they had brought the 
soldiers, as will presently appear. 

By-and-by they came to an inn, which was a farm as 


THE PURSUIT 


205 


well, and looked very peaceful and comfortable, with 
its neat toy barns and outhouses among the trees 
and fields, and the toy animals feeding all about them. 
They stopped for a minute or two to ask questions of 
the innkeeper, who was a wooden doll of a rather stolid 
appearance. When the Lord Chancellor began to ask 
him questions he went and fetched his wife, and she 
was more intelligent, and gave her answers well. 

She said that the two carriages had stopped at the 
inn, and a lady in the first one had put her head out 
and asked for a glass of water. The blinds of the 
carriage were drawn down, but when the innkeeper’s 
wife had brought the glass of water she had seen the 
lady who asked for it give it to another lady inside 
the carriage. She thought that this second lady had 
tried to say something to her, but the first lady had put 
her hand over her mouth and stopped her, and then 
somebody else in a corner of the carriage — she thought 
it was a man by the size of his hand — had passed the 
glass out to her, with a piece of money, and the window 
had been pushed up at once and the carriages had 
driven off. 

She was rather confused about it all, as it had passed 
so quickly; but it seemed plain that Queen Rosebud 
had thought of this way of making it known that she 





He went and fetched his wife 


m 




THE PURSUIT 


207 


was being carried off. She must have said that she 
didn’t feel very well, and would like a glass of water 
at the next house they stopped at, meaning to tell who- 
ever brought it who she was. But Rose had prevented 
her. This was one more thing against Rose. 

That was not all the innkeeper’s wife told them. As 
the carriage drove off, a wooden lady had put her head 
out of the second one and called out, “Here we go 
round the mulberry bush ! ” The innkeeper’s wife had 
thought afterwards that perhaps these were some luna- 
tics — for there are a few lunatics amongst dolls — being 
taken out for an airing. But, of course, it had only 
been Wooden’s aunt acting in her usual silly fashion. 

But the odd thing was that the innkeeper’s wife had 
seen nothing of Teddy. She said she must have seen 
him if he had passed along the road, as she had been 
in her kitchen, which was in front of the house, all the 
time. So as they went on they had something to won- 
der about, as to what had become of Teddy. Wooden 
thought he had missed the way, but this seemed impos- 
sible, as the road ran straight towards the sea. The 
Lord Chancellor thought that he might have tumbled 
off his horse, but this seemed more unlikely still, as he 
was clever enough to jump about on it and ride back- 
wards. What Peggy thought she kept to herself. It 


208 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


was that Teddy had some clever plan in his head, 
which they would hear about all in good time, and had 
never meant to catch up the carriages all by himself. 
For of course he could easily have done so if he had 
liked, as he could go much faster than they could. 

They went up the road over the hills, which you re- 
member that the river had come through in a gorge, 
and when they came to the top of it they could see the 
sea a few miles away. The road ran straight down 
to it. They could see several specks on the road at a 
good distance off, but there was nothing that looked 
like the two carriages. 

This was a disappointment, as they had quite ex- 
pected to catch sight of the fugitives from the top of 
the hill, and to come up with them before they could 
reach the sea. If they had already got there, it seemed 
as if they must have escaped them after all. 

But it seemed impossible that the carriages should 
have got so far ahead. They had not been more than 
half an hour behind them at the inn, and even if they 
had not gained on them since, they must have seen 
them on the road in front, if they had been there. &o 
they must have left the straight road, and the ques- 
tion was what to do next. 

As they were talking it over, Peggy thought she 


THE PURSUIT 


209 


heard a cry in the wood on their right. She listened 
with all her ears, and then thought she heard another. 
She told Wooden, and all of them listened. 

Yes, there was no doubt about it. The noise was 
some distance off, and could not be heard very plainly ; 
but it kept on, and seemed to be somebody calling for 
help. They got off their horse and went into the wood, 
in the direction from which the call seemed to be com- 
ing. As they got farther in among the trees it became 
louder. It was like a woman calling “Help! Help!” 
every second or two, but in a strangled voice, as if there 
were something in the way. 

Wooden called out “Coming! Coming!” and they 
ran on as fast they could. 

They came to a little clearing in the wood, and there, 
sitting on the ground with her back against a great 
fir-tree, was Wooden’s unfortunate aunt. She had a 
handkerchief tied over her mouth, and a rope went 
round her body and tied her tight to the tree. Her 
hands were behind her, and seemed to be tied too, so 
that she could not free herself. Altogether, she was 
in a very sorry plight. 

But she did not seem to have altogether lost her 
spirits, for when she saw them coming towards her she 
kicked her legs up and gave a little sort of crow, which 


210 PEGGY IN TOYLAND 

sounded rather pathetic, coming through her handker- 
chief. 

Wooden untied the handkerchief, murmuring sounds 
of distress and sympathy all the time, while Colonel 
Jim busied himself with the rope, and when he found 
he couldn’t untie it cut it with his sword. In a very 
short time, Wooden’s aunt was standing up free, shak- 
ing the pine needles off her skirts. 

“I thought somebody would come if I yelled long 
enough,” she said, in quite a cheerful voice, which 
did her credit, as it showed she had a great deal of 
pluck, in spite of the numerous faults of her nature. 

“But how did you come to be here, dear?” asked 
Wooden. ‘ ‘ And what has become of mother ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, yer mother’s all right,” said Wooden’s aunt. 
“She’s with the quality. I don’t like their ways of 
going on, so I asked them to kindly drop me anywhere 
that was convenient. ’ ’ 

“But why did they tie you up like this, dear?” asked 
Wooden. 

“Oh, they thought we was playing Blind Man’s 
Buff , ’ ’ said her aunt. 

It was all very well for her to take it in this light- 
hearted spirit, and Peggy rather admired her for it. 
But she must have had a very rough time, for her 


THE PURSUIT 


211 


dress was all torn, and her wrists were scarred where 
the rope had bound them. As she spoke she was rub- 



bing them, to restore the circulation, and she looked 
white, and as if she might faint at any moment. 

Fortunately, there was a little pool of water quite 


212 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


near, and Colonel Jim, who showed himself kind and 
useful in this emergency, filled his helmet with water 
and gave it to her to drink, as she sat on the ground 
again with Wooden kneeling by her side and holding 
her. 

“Ah, that’s better/ ’ she said, smacking her lips, 
when she had had a good drink. “I’ve been looking 
at that pond and wishing I could get at it. Drat that 
Selim! I wish I could get at him ! 1 ’d mark him. ’ ’ 

She said these last sentences in her usual vigorous 
way, which showed that she was recovering ; and when 
she had rested a little longer, they got her story out *of 
her. 

“They’d said we was going to be took to the palace,” 
she said, “and at first I didn’t think nothing of going 
such a long way round. None of us didn’t. But by- 
and-by Lady Grace says, ‘I wonder who’s in the first 
carriage,’ she says. ‘Oh, I’ll soon find that out,’ I 
says, and I pokes my head out of window and hollers 
out to the driver, ‘Hi, Mister! Who have you got in 
front there?’ ” 

“Was that before or after you had passed the inn 
where they got some water?” asked the Lord Chan- 
cellor. 

“Never you mind whether it was before or after,” 


THE PURSUIT 213 

said "Wooden’s aunt. “I'm telling this story, and I’m 
going to tell it in my own way. ’ 9 

This was not very polite of her, but she had been 
through a great deal, and her nerves were in an irrit- 
able state. The Lord Chancellor asked no more ques- 
tions, and she finished her story to the end. 

She said the coachman told her that it was the King 
who was in the first carriage, and advised her not to 
put her head out of window again as he had orders to 
hit anybody who did so with his whip. 

This seemed such an extraordinary order for him 
to have received that the three dolls in the carriage 
began to suspect that there was something wrong, espe- 
cially as they had now been driving for a long time, 
and when Wooden’s aunt had put her head out of win- 
dow she had seen that they were getting near the hills, 
which she recognized. It was not exactly observant of 
them not to have suspected something before, but, as 
you know by now, dolls are apt to take everything that 
happens as a matter of course. 

Well, by the time the carriages had reached the top 
of the hill, the three dolls had come to the conclusion 
that they were being run away with. Wooden’s aunt 
said she wasn’t going to stand that, and was going to 
ask Selim what he meant by it. She said she would 


214 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


jump out of the carriage as it was going, and run for- 
ward to the first carriage. The others said that the 
coachman would hit her with his whip, but she said 
she would run the risk of his missing her. 

Well, as the carriages came to the top of the hill, she 
opened the carriage door quickly and jumped out, and 
ran forward to the first carriage. The driver shouted 
at her, and gave her a great cut with his whip, which 
unfortunately did not miss her, but hit her in the face, 
where there was still an ugly-looking mark. But she 
hardly felt it at the time, and ran forward to the first 
carriage, shouting out, “Hi, you there, Selim! Come 
out and show your ugly face ! ’ ’ 

Oh, there was no doubt about the pluck of Wooden’s 
aunt, in spite of the numerous faults of her character. 

The rest was soon told. Selim had been furious 
with her, and he and Rose had dragged her into the 
wood and tied her to the- tree, and then they had gone 
off. Bht before they had left her, Rose had stood in 
front of her and laughed her scornful laugh, and said, 
“That’s for calling me Sawdust. Perhaps you’ll be 
sorry now for crossing the path of Rose, who never for- 
gets and never forgives.” 

This was one more thing against Rose. 

The Lord Chancellor asked Wooden’s aunt if she 


THE PURSUIT 


215 


had any idea where the carriages were going, and told 
her they could not see them on the straight road to 
Dollport. This was the name of the little town by the 
sea, where the dolls landed from “over there.” 

“Well, silly,” said Wooden’s aunt, “if they ain’t on 
that road, of course they’re on the other one. It don’t 
take a pair of specs to see that.” 

The Lord Chancellor, slightly annoyed at being ad- 
dressed in this fashion, said stiffly, “I should have 
thought of that if I had been given time. We have de- 
layed long enough. Let u.s at once take the road to 
Dollfort.” Now, Dollfort was the place in which the 
wooden soldiers of Toyland were trained. If Selim 
had gone there, it looked as if he expected the wooden 
soldiers to be on his side. 



XVI 


COLONEL JIM ATTEMPTS A RESCUE 

The road to Dollfort turned to the right at the top of 
the hill, and ran for some way through the wood. 
When it got to the bottom of the hill there was a stretch 
of open country for about a mile; then there was an- 
other thick wood on another hill. 

There was no sign of the carriages on the straight 
bit of road, but the pursuers had been some time free- 
ing Wooden’s aunt and listening to her story, and 
could hardly have expected to catch them up yet. 
Wooden’s aunt was riding between Peggy and Wooden. 
She had nearly recovered from her disagreeable expe- 
rience, and was inclined to like being on horseback. 
She said the motion reminded her of being in a small 
boat on a choppy sea. 

When they had got about halfway between the two 
woods, Colonel Jim halted them with a sharp word of 
command. “Women and children behind!’'’ he said, 
and then ordered his men in front. 

It was a good things that this was done, for as they 
approached the second wood two armed wooden sol- 
216 


COLONEL JIM ATTEMPTS A RESCUE 217 

diers sprang out of it and levelled their rifles at them. 
They did not fire them, but it would have given Peggy 
and the dolls a nasty fright if they had been riding in 
front. 

The wooden sentries challenged Colonel Jim, riding 
at the head of his little troop, with a “Halt!” and a 
“Who goes there?” He said “Friend!” but they did 
not say “Pass Friend!” as is the usual custom. They 
told him that the King had recently gone through to 
Dollfort, and had told them that they were to let no- 
body pass until they received further orders from the 
fort. 

Now Colonel Jim engaged in the duties of his profes- 
sion was quite a different person from the amiable but 
rather slow-witted person we have hitherto seen. He 
didn’t tell the sentries that Selim wasn’t the King at 
all, or engage in any argument with them. He said, 
“I’m an officer of the Royal Body Guard, so your or- 
ders can ’t apply to me . 9 ’ Then he gave them the pass- 
word for the day, which, as you remember, was the 
word “pot-plants.” 

Now, you must also remember that, although Selim 
had thought he might be followed in his flight, which 
was the reason why he had given orders to the sen- 
tries to let no one pass the wood, he could not have 


218 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


known that he would be immediately followed by a 
troop of Household cavalry, which is, of course, the 
special protection of a King or Queen. So he had nat- 
urally not warned the sentries of this, and as Colonel 
Jim spoke with authority, they were inclined to obey 
him. 

‘ 4 Well, I suppose it’s all right for you and your 
men,” said one of the sentries, “but what about these 
here civs?” He meant civilians. 

The Lord Chancellor now showed considerable re- 
source. The sentries had lowered their rifles, which, 
strictly speaking, they ought not yet to have done, so 
he pushed his way to the front, and said in an import- 
ant voice, “I am the highest official of this country; 
this gentleman here is the Royal Head Bargeman ; this 
lady is the one the King has asked to marry him, and 
this is her aunt; and this little girl is a human being, 
and therefore doesn’t come under your orders at all.” 

“Oh, well, I suppose it’s all right,” said the sentry 
in a grumbling voice. “You can pass through, all of 
you, and if me and my mate thinks it isn’t all right 
afterwards, why we can shoot after you. ’ ’ 

“Have you got your rifles in order?” asked Colonel 
Jim in a sharp voice. “Let’s have a look at them.” 

Because he was an officer, and had spoken in a voice 


COLONEL JIM ATTEMPTS A RESCUE 219 


of command, they obediently handed him their rifles 
to look at. 

‘ ‘ Thank you,” said Colonel Jim, and handed the 
rifles to one of his men. “Now, you take these two 
and bring them along with us, ’ ’ he said to another one. 
The surprised sentries found themselves prisoners, and 
made to walk by the side of the horses, which now pro- 
ceeded at a foot’s pace up through the wood. 

So far, all had gone well. 

They kept a sharp look-out going through the wood, 
but saw no more soldiers. When they came to the edge 
of the wood they could see Dollfort across the open 
downs about a mile away. 

Dollfort was a very fine toy fort, something like the 
one Peggy had seen driving into Dolltown, but much 
bigger. There were battlements all round it, with 
gates in them, and on the top of the fort was a large 
citadel. Outside the walls was a little town of dolls’ 
houses, where the families of the wooden soldiers lived. 
None but wooden soldiers occupied this fort, and of 
course that was why Selim had taken refuge there. 
He would tell them a great many lies and get them on 
his side. 

The pursuing party remained in the shelter of the 
wood, where they could not be seen from the fort, even 



220 



COLONEL JIM ATTEMPTS A RESCUE 221 


with a telescope, but they could see the fort themselves 
quite plainly, and the country that lay between. This 
was all open grass-land, and woolly sheep were feed- 
ing on it. There were no houses between the wood and 
the fort. 

Colonel Jim at once announced that he was going to 
take his soldiers to the fort and summon Selim to sur- 
render. The Lord Chancellor thought this was a dan- 
gerous proceeding, but Colonel Jim refused to listen to 
him. “Pm in military command here,” he said, “and 
that is what I am going to do.” No doubt he was in 
a hurry, not only because of the Queen being shut up 
there, in the power of Selim, but because his dear Lady 
Grace was also shut up there. But he did not say this. 
He left Mr. Noah in charge, and set off with his gallant 
little band. They watched them ride down the hill, 
and trot across the open road over the downs, and very 
fine they looked on their splendid black chargers, with 
the sun glittering on their helmets and cuirasses, and 
their white plumes waving in the breeze. 

The two captured wooden soldiers had had their 
hands tied, but when Mr. Noah told them all about 
Selim’s wickedness, and about the Queen being still 
alive, they expressed such horror that he allowed them 
to be untied. They said that if the soldiers in the fort 


222 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


knew what had happened none of them would be on 
Selim’s side. They had only been prepared to obey 
him as King because he was of wood, but they were 
loyal to Queen Kosebud, and would be glad to have her 
reigning over them again. They were none of them 
pleased at the shutting up of all the Waxes, who had 
done them no harm, and rumours had come through to 
Dollfort that not only Waxes but some Woods also had 
been sent to prison, and this had pleased them still 
less. When the sentries w T ere told that Wooden and 
her aunt had been two of the dolls in question, they 
were very interested, and said that their comrades 
would never fight for Selim, if it came to fighting. 
Whether this was true or not, you will soon see. 

They watched the little troop of soldiers get smaller 
and smaller, and at last disappear among the houses 
outside the fort. Then they waited for a long time, 
while the sheep fed peacefully on the downs in the 
evening sunlight, and no other signs of life could be 
seen at all except the smoke rising from the houses 
round the fort. 

They had finished talking, and had been sitting silent 
for about five minutes, when Wooden’s aunt, whose 
ears were very sharp, said suddenly, “Hark! What’s 
that ? ’ ’ 


COLONEL JIM ATTEMPTS A RESCUE 223 


Nobody else had heard anything, but almost imme- 
diately Mr. Noah said, “ There are guns firing.” And 
then Peggy distinctly heard some faint pops coming 
from the direction of the fort. 

This was serious, because the life-guardsmen had 



no rifles, but only their swords, and if they were being 
fired upon by the wooden soldiers it would be difficult 
for them to defend themselves. 

“Look!” cried Peggy in great excitement. 

Just where the houses began, a mile away, there was 


224 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


a flash of sun on bright metal, and no sooner had she 
spoken than they could all see that it was on the hel- 
mets and breastplates of the soldiers. Then they saw 
the life-guardsmen galloping towards them, and di- 
rectly they had got clear of the houses, they saw the 
scarlet and white of the wooden soldiers following 

them, and heard their guns shooting. But none of the 
horse-soldiers seemed to be hit, and on they came, gal- 
loping along the road, and on the grass on either side 
of it. The foot soldiers came running after them, but 
of course they could not go nearly so fast, and pres- 
ently Colonel Jim and his men galloped up the road into 
the wood. 

By this time the wooden soldiers were about a quar- 
ter of the way between the fort and the wood. There 
seemed to be an enormous number of them. They had 
left off firing their rifles, but were coming on at a good 
pace. In not so very long they would reach the wood, 
and it really seemed as if they must capture not only 
Colonel Jim and his troop, but Peggy and the Woodens 
and all the rest of them. Peggy was a little frightened 

then, for the red and white was coming towards them 
like a great wave, and all the soldiers had rifles, which 
they would certainly use if any resistance were offered 
to them. 


COLONEL JIM ATTEMPTS A RESCUE 225 


Colonel Jim cast one hurried glance round him. “If 
we had axes,” he said, “we could make a barricade, 
and keep them at bay until we could send for rein- 
forcements. As it is, I*m afraid we must clear out.” 

“What, and leave my sister-in-law shut up there!” 
exclaimed Wooden’s aunt. “Never! If nobody else 
stays, I shall. I’ve got a sharp pair of nails, and I 
can give them a few scratches.” 

Now, this was plucky of Wooden’s aunt, and loyal 
too. She had only mentioned Wooden’s mother, but 
no doubt she had had the Queen in her mind as well. 
But she had left out of account the military situation, 
not knowing much about that sort of thing, and her 
opinion could not be allowed to stand against that of 
Colonel Jim, who was quite as brave as she was, but 
knew when there was a chance of fighting successfully 
and when it was better to retreat. 

“We shall have to go,” he said decidedly. “If they 
take us prisoners we can’t do any more good, but if we 
get back to Dolltown we can bring out reinforcements 
and take the fort. To horse, all of you !” 

The wooden soldiers were now about halfway across 
the stretch of open country. They were not running 
so fast now, as they must have got rather winded with 
their first effort, but more and more of them were com- 


226 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


in g out of the fort, and it was quite plain that the little 
band in the wood would have no possible chance against 
them. 

They untied the horses and ponies, and were just 
preparing to mount, when Wooden’s aunt said, ‘ 4 Hark! 
I heard a shout. ’ ’ 

She turned towards the interior of the wood, and 
they all listened. Yes, there was somebody shouting, 
and they heard the noise of a horse galloping furiously, 
besides. In a moment there came into sight, among 
the trees — who do you think? None other than 
Peggy’s faithful old Teddy. 



XVII 


THE BATTLE 

Teddy galloped up to them and threw himself off his 
horse. One glance at the advancing wave of wooden 
soldiers showed him what the position was. There 
was no time to explain what he had been doing. Every 
moment was of value. ‘ ‘ There ’s cavalry and infantry 
coming up,” he said to Colonel Jim. “We can make 
a stand here. Better send one of your men back to 
hurry up the guns.” 

But there was no necessity to do this, for as Teddy 
was speaking they could hear the noise of horses trot- 
ting along through the wood, and almost immediately 
a lot of lead soldiers made their appearance, and came 
rapidly towards them. They were Lancers, on bright 
bay horses, and very smart they looked with the little 
flags fluttering at the tops of their lances. 

The Colonel of the regiment rode at the head of 
them. He came up to Colonel Jim, and saluted. 
“ Just in time, eh, sir?” he said. Colonel Jim saluted, 
227 


228 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 



too, and said, “Are your men ready for a charge, sir? 
If so, we can keep them off till the guns come up. ’ ’ 

The Colonel of the Lancer regiment threw one glance 


THE BATTLE 


229 


at the approaching wooden soldiers. There were thou- 
sands and thousands of them, and only a few of his 
men could come up at a time, by the narrow road 
through the wood. But odds did not daunt him, and 
he at once gave the order to charge. 

The Lancers who had gathered at the edge of the 
wood immediately charged down the hill, shouting and 
singing in the most gallant fashion, the Colonel at their 
head ; and the others who were coming up behind quick- 
ened their pace and followed them. They spread out 
as they got into the open, so as to charge the whole 
front of the wooden infantry. Colonel Jim held his 
own little troop back, partly out of politeness to the 
Colonel of Lancers, partly because their horses were 
blown. 

It had all happened so quickly that Peggy had not 
had time to be frightened yet. But the noise of the 
horses galloping and the men shouting got louder and 
louder, and the wooden soldiers had now got so near 
that their shouts could be heard too, as they stood to 
receive the shock of the cavalry. She suddenly 
shrieked, and clung to Wooden. “Oh, they’re not 
going to kill each other, are they?” she cried. “Do 
let’s go away!” 

Wooden soothed her. “Of course they’re not going 


230 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


to kill each other, dear,” she said. “ Soldiers don’t do 
that in Toyland. They only knock each other down; 
and whichever side knocks most down wins.” 

This relieved Peggy’s fears a little, and in any case 
she was in the thick of it now, and had to see it through. 
She was really a plucky little girl, and by the time the 
cavalry got to the bottom of the hill she had partly 
recovered from her fright, and did not shut her eyes. 

The cavalry rode gallantly at the thick mass of sol- 
diers, with their lances levelled, and whenever they hit 
a wooden soldier, down he went. The wooden soldiers 
fired their rifles at them as they came down the hill, 
and knocked over a few. But the bullets, which were 
small peas, of a kind grown specially for rifle ammu- 
nition, were not big enough to do much damage against 
men and horses coming so fast. It was only when sev- 
eral bullets hit the same soldier, or his horse, that they 
were knocked over. But the foot-soldiers left off fir- 
ing and began to use their bayonets when the cavalry 
got amongst them, and then they did knock over a large 
number of men and horses, though not nearly so many 
as the Lancers knocked over of them. 

It was most fascinating to watch. The Lancers 
went on and on through the masses of infantry, and 
wherever they went, down fell heaps of wooden sol- 


THE BATTLE 


231 


diers. And when they were knocked down they lay 
quite still on the ground, and took no further interest 
in the proceedings. But the farther in the Lancers 
went the less they became, as men and horses were 
howled over in their turn. It was just as if they were 
being swallowed up in the great mass of red and white, 
and there were so many of the wooden soldiers that it 
soon became plain that in a short time the Lancers 
would all disappear. 

Peggy watched the Colonel, who was always in front, 
tight his way steadily on, dealing lightning blows to 
right and left of him. But at last he went down, and 
the red coats were almost as thick as before, and still 
more were always coming up from the fort. 

It was then that Colonel Jim rallied his little troop 
for a last gallant charge. Teddy had galloped back 
through the wood, while the Lancers were charging, 
to hurry up the guns. He now came tearing back, and 
said to Colonel Jim in a hurried voice, “The guns will 
be- here in a couple of minutes. If you can keep them 
back till then we shall have them beaten.” 

“I’ll try,” said Colonel Jim, looking at his little 
troop, which seemed almost nothing at all compared 
to the masses of soldiers advancing on them; and then 
he gave the word to charge. 


232 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


It was a desperate effort. The shock of the Lancers’ 
charge had now spent itself. The wooden soldiers, 
who had been kept back by it for a time which was 
short measured by minutes, but of inestimable value 
to the defenders of the wood, were now forming at the 
foot of the hill. If they succeeded in getting to the 
top of it, the little party in the wood would be sur- 
sounded and taken prisoners. Could Colonel Jim’s 
handful of men save them? 

The troopers were given instructions to- form them- 
selves into a line at the edge of the wood, and then to 
charge down the hill all together. They rode out of 
the shelter of the trees, and formed their line with as 
much coolness as if they were on parade. The foot- 
soldiers began firing again, and the bullets pattered on 
their cuirasses like hail, but had no effect upon these 
heroes, except to sting them up when they caught them 
in their faces, and to make their horses restive. Peggy 
could hear the bullets whistling and pattering amongst 
the leaves of the trees over her head, but she and the 
dolls had been withdrawn a little into the wood. Ow- 
ing to the angle at which the wooden soldiers fired, 
there was no danger for them as long as the firing was 
from the bottom of the hill. 

It took the life-guardsmen a very short time to form 


THE BATTLE 


233 


into line, and, as the wooden soldiers had halted to fire 
at them, the time was not wasted. The moment they 
were in line, Colonel Jim, who was in the middle, 
slightly in advance of the rest, gave the word to charge. 

Down swept the splendid little band, in an irresist- 
ible charge. It was no good firing at them any longer, 
and the wooden soldiers stood with bayonets fixed to 
receive the shock. Wooden’s aunt, who had been get- 
ting more and more excited at what was happening, 
ran forward to the edge of the wood to watch, and 
Peggy and the others went with her. 

The sudden leaving off of the firing made a lull, in 
which the noise of the horses’ hoofs could be heard 
thundering down the hill. When they reached the bot- 
tom, the shock of the encounter was just like hammer 
blows, as wood met metal. 

The front line of wooden soldiers seemed to waver 
a little as the horsemen approached them. And no 
wonder! The wooden soldiers were brave enough, 
and they did not yet know that they were fighting in a 
bad cause, so there was nothing to make them cowards. 
But the -first line of them, at least, must have known 
that they would all go down before the irresistible 
charge, and it spoke well for them that they stood and 
waited for it, instead of running away. 


234 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


It was not only the front line that went down under 
the weight, but the second and third. It really looked 
for a. moment as if that single line of heavy cavalry 
would push the opposing host back all by itself. And, 
so far, not a single man or horse of them had fallen. 

But the impetus of the furious charge was bound to 
spend itself. A life-guardsman went down, and then 
another. But still they struggled on, Colonel Jim in 
front of them fighting desperately, as the Colonel of 
the Lancers had done. It was no longer a line of steel 
destroying everything in front of it as it swept on, but 
a few scattered horsemen, fighting gloriously against 
overwhelming odds. 

But still they did advance, and for every horse and 
rider that went down a score or more of foot soldiers 
bit the dust. 

“They’ll do it! They’ll do it!” yelled Wooden’s 
aunt, dancing about in a state of tremendous excite- 
ment. 

Teddy, sitting on his horse, was no less excited. 
“They’re giving way!” he cried. And Peggy dis- 
tinctly saw a quiver run through the mass of wooden 
soldiers, like wind passing over a field of corn. 

At this very moment there was a roar and a rumble 
from the wood behind, and the artillery came galloping 


THE BATTLE 


235 


up, just in the nick of time. A great shout was raised, 
which struck terror into the hearts of the wooden sol- 
diers down below. Before the first gun could be un- 
limbered and pointed at them, the great mass of red 
coats turned and broke. Colonel Jim, and all that was 
left of his little troop, took up the shout, and redoubled 
their efforts. They had it all their own way now. 
The enemy was flying, and not one wooden soldier tried 
to knock them down any more, but only to escape their 
blows, and get back in safety to the fort. 

The big guns got to work. One of them was quite 
near to where Peggy and the Woodens were standing. 
It was quickly loaded with gunpowder and an enor- 
mous pea. She stopped her ears as it was fired, but 
the n-oise was not so bad as if it had been a real gun. 
She distinctly saw the great pea fall in the middle of 
the fleeing army, and then go bowling along, knocking 
over lots of soldiers before its force had spent itself. 

Orders soon came, however, for the artillery to cease 
firing. More regiments of cavalry were coming up 
through the wood. As they arrived they were sent 
down to pursue the wooden soldiers, and also to ride 
round them, and cut them off from the fort. There 
was no necessity to knock down any more of them. 
If they were surrounded they would be obliged to sur- 



The big guns got to work 


236 






THE BATTLE 


237 


render, and this would come to the same thing. The 
guns would be wanted to reduce the fort, and, until 
further supplies of ammunition came up, they did not 
want to waste it. 

It was a pretty sight to see the cavalry galloping over 
the downs, outflanking the flying red coats, and pres- 
ently getting between them and the fort. But a good 
many wooden soldiers who had only got a little way 
out when the rout began had already succeeded in 
making their way back. There would be plenty to 
defend the fort, if Selim should decide to try to hold 
it. 




XVIII 


THE SIEGE 

The great contest that would be known in the history 
of Toyland as the Battle of the Downs had been fought 
and won. But Queen Rosebud was not yet set free, 
and Selim was not yet captured. There was still stem 
work to be done. Dollfort must be taken at all costs, 
and as it was one of the strongest forts in the country 
that would be no light matter. 

The affair, however, was set in hand at once. The 
artillery limbered up and galloped down the hill and 
trotted across the downs, making a fine show. There 
were about twenty guns — quite enough to make a 
breach in the walls. But when they had done so, in- 
fantry would be required to pour in through the breach 
and complete the work that the guns had begun. The 
cavalry had already done their share, and would not 
be of much use for this task. For in the valiant army 
of Toyland it was not customary to use horse-soldiers 
apart from their horses. 

But Teddy, who seemed to have thought of every- 

238 


THE SIEGE 


239 


thing, had asked for infantry to be sent from Doll- 
town, as well as cavalry and artillery, and almost as 
soon as the guns had thundered off down the hill the 
first detachment of foot-soldiers came up through the 
wood. 

If they had had to march from Dolltown they could 
not have been there in time ; but all the available con- 
veyances had been used to bring them up. The first 
lot arrived in toy motor-cars, and then followed car- 
riages and cabs and carts in quick succession, until 
quite enough men were there to overcome any resist- 
ance the fort might make. 

Peggy, and the little group of civilian dolls watched 
the first regiment form up and march away towards 
their task at Dollfort. It was a regiment of wooden 
soldiers, and the Lord Chancellor said he thought that 
was a mistake, as they would not like fighting against 
their own sort. But Teddy, who came up to say a 
word to them now and then, laughed at this. “They 
are all loyal,’ ’ he said. “So will the soldiers at Doll- 
fort be, when they know the truth.” 

There was certainly no lack of eagerness shown by 
this fine regiment, as it marched down the hill with its 
flag at its head. Peggy was interested to see Captain 
Louisa marching with one of the companies. He had 


240 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


said that his men would follow him anywhere, and she 
was glad to see that he was prepared to fight on the 
side of the right. 

When the first regiment had marched off, Teddy 
came up to them and said, “I think we might go now. 
You’d like to see the guns knock the fort down, 
wouldn’t you?” 

Peggy said she should like it very much. She had 
always liked playing with her boy cousin with his sol- 
diers, and this was just like one of the battles and 
sieges that they had arranged, only on an enormous, 
glorious scale. Since she had seen that there was no 
horrible bloodshed, but only fair and square knocking 
down, from which none of the soldiers would be much 
the worse afterwards, she had ceased to feel any alarm 
at the fighting, and was quite ready to see some more 
of it. 

They rode across the downs towards Dollfort, and 
now Teddy had time to tell them how he had so luckily 
been able to bring up the troops, and spoil Selim’s little 
game. 

He had been galloping along the road after the two 
carriages and must have nearly caught them up, when 
he had met Japhet, Mr. Noah’s third son. He had 
been just about to pass him with a wave of the paw, 


THE SIEGE 241 

when J aphet had stopped him, and told him some most 
important news. 

Now Japhet was a mild-mannered, studious young 
man, whose great hobby was the collection of wild- 



flowers, which he pressed in a book. Whenever he was 
off duty on the royal Ark, he used to wander about the 
country picking flowers. Sometimes he went alone, 
and sometimes with a friend, who shared the same 


242 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


tastes. This friend was also in the royal service. In 
fact, he was none other than the driver of the carriage 
in which Selim had run away with Queen Rosebud. 
Japhet had made arrangements to meet him that very 
evening on the road between Dolltown and Dollfort, 
and have a good long ramble with him. 

It was fortunate that it was just on this road that 
Japhet had arranged to meet his friend. Of course, 
if he had not come, Japhet would have known that it 
was because he was on duty; but he would not have 
known where he was going. 

As the carriage passed, Japhet waved to his friend, 
and asked him where he was going. His friend said 
“Dollfort.” They both spoke under their breaths, 
making great movement with their mouths, and the 
driver also made a movement with his head towards 
the carriage behind him, and said in the same way, 
“I’ve got the old man with me.” This was how these 
two talked to each other about Selim, and was not 
meant for disrespect, as they would not have done it 
m public. 

Teddy said, “Are you sure he said Dollfort and not 
Dollport?” 

Japhet said he was quite sure, because he had jerked 
his thumb to the right, where Dollfort was. If he had 


THE SIEGE 


243 


meant Dollport, he would have pointed straight ahead. 

Then Teddy had seen it all. Selim was not going to 
try to escape by sea, with Queen Rosebud, but was 
going to rouse the wooden soldiers of Dollfort, and 
perhaps try to get the kingdom back with their help. 
So Teddy turned sharp round, and rode back to Doll- 
town — but not along the road by which he had come — 
leaving Japhet standing there in considerable surprise. 

When he had told his story, the Lord Chancellor 
asked him why he had not come back and told them 
what he had found out. He was annoyed about it. 
“If it had not been for our own extreme cleverness,” 
he said, “we might have gone off on a false scent to 
Dollport, and not known where they had gone to at 
all.” 

Teddy grinned up at him rather impudently. “You 
wouldn’t have been much loss,” he said. “I knew it 
would take you about a month to start, if you started 
at all; and I wanted to take the short cut to the bar- 
racks. There was no time to be lost.” 

“ It ’s as well you did, ’ ’ said Mr. Noah. ‘ ‘ The troops 
only came up just in the nick of time. Five minutes 
more, and the enemy would have been entrenched in 
the wood. ’ ’ 

As they rode across the downs, they passed heaps 


244 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


of soldiers lying on the ground, most of which were 
wooden soldiers of the attacking party ; but some were 
men and horses of the Life-guards and the Lancers. 
None of them were much damaged, but they hated 
lying there and doing nothing, and implored to be 
picked up. 

But they were told that there wasn’t time for that. 
The ambulance corps would be sent out as soon as 
possible, and they must wait for that. The only sol- 
dier they did pick up was the Colonel of Lancers, who 
rode along with them, very glad for his horse to be on 
its feet again. He was proud of the charge that his 
regiment had made, but would not take any credit for 
his own share of it. He said that he had only done 
his duty as a soldier should. 

When they arrived at the houses in front of the fort, 
the guns had already got to work. The cavalry had 
gone into the streets, and told all the inhabitants to 
come away, as in five minutes their houses were going 
to be knocked down. It was necessary to destroy them, 
in order to have a clear range at the walls of the fort, 
and as our little party came up the dolls’ houses of 
the town were toppling down in dozens as the guns 
fired at them. All the poor dolls who had been told 
to leave them were gathered in a body on a low hill 




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I ’ ’ '->■■ 

l'i-,' ^' \ ‘0P? »• 

^ — ; „ . I ^-wO y* s ^ •$>. 

*— ' ^>r-* ’* < ^ = . '^A t' 

«•■■' SO '*\ 



All the poor dolls were gathered in a body 


245 




246 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


to the right, watching the destruction of their homes, 
and it was sad to hear the wails and lamentations that 
arose from them; for they had not had time to bring 
anything away. Perhaps their possessions were not 
worth very much, but still, a home is a home to those 
who live in it. Be it ever so humble, there is no place 
like it, as the song says, and it was not nice for these 
poor people to see their homes knocked down by great 
peas as big as wardrobes. However, the houses would 
all be put up again as soon as the siege was over, and 
the poor dolls would not be any the worse off. 

The hill on which the refugees were crowded was 
out of the line of fire, and our party went there to 
watch what was going on. 

It was not quite such an easy matter to reduce the 
fort as it first appeared. For one thing, the walls 
had been built to resist such attacks, and would be more 
difficult to demolish than the houses outside them. 
And for another thing, the artillery did not have it all 
its own way. There were, of course, guns in the fort 
itself, and they were already doing great damage to 
the attacking forces. The shooting was not quite so 
good as it might have been, and the artillery-men in 
the field were very clever in moving their guns about 
quickly, so that whenever they had fired they would 


THE SIEGE 247 

move away to a new position, and the guns in the fort 
always had to be finding new ranges. 

Still, one field-gun after another was put out of 

* 

action, and now there were only about half of them left 
to do the work. 

The situation was as follows. The houses in the 
way had all been knocked down, leaving the battlements 
of the fort open to attack, but it had cost half the artil- 
lery to do it. Would the other half be enough to make 
a breach in the walls, through which the infantry could 
pour in and do their work, before they were put out of 
action, too? And supposing they did, would enough 
infantry arrive in time to do the pouring in? It was 
touch and go, as all the episodes of this great battle 
had been. 

As for the infantry, the wooden regiment in which 
Captain Louisa served had already come up, and was 
resting under cover waiting till the time came for it 
to make its attack. And across the downs were march- 
ing more regiments, all of lead soldiers. Yes, the in- 
fantry would be ready, if the guns could do their work 
in time. 

The artillery now changed its tactics. The time had 
gone by for moving about and firing guns singly. 
They would never make a hole in those stout walls, 


248 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


unless all of them fired at one place together. This 
then was what they had to do. It was costly, because 
when once the guns of the fort had found the range, 
they could knock them all out pretty quickly. But it 
was the only way. 

The Colonel of Lancers explained all this very po- 
litely to Peggy, and she watched with breathless in- 
terest this exceedingly important phase of the battle. 

There was silence from the field artillery while the 
guns were all being trained on to one place in the 
walls. But the guns from the fort redoubled their 
efforts. One of them had the good luck to find the 
range immediately. The moment the field-guns had 
galloped up to the position that had been decided on, 
a great bullet came bounding along and knocked one 
of the batteries down. Then the others found the 
range. The field-guns were pointed and loaded won- 
derfully quickly, but before any of them could actually 
fire, five of them had been knocked out. Just as the 
order to fire was given, two more were knocked out. 
So the great blow was only delivered by three guns. 

They might just have done it if the balls had all hit 
exactly the same spot in the walls. Two of them hit 
it exactly, but the third went a little wild. Peggy dis- 
tinctly heard them hit the wall. There was a little fall 


THE SIEGE 


249 


of masonry and a cloud of dust. When this cleared 
away, she looked eagerly for a hole in the wall. But 
no hole was there. Those frowning battlements stood 
as whole and nearly as strong as before. 

Immediately afterwards the remaining field-guns 
were put out of action by the guns of the fort. The 
artillery attack had failed, and a tremendous cheer 
arose from the soldiers who were crowding the walls of 
the fort watching the Homeric contest. 

But their cheering soon died away, for this was not 
the end of it. What followed happened so quickly 
that Peggy could not afterwards remember exactly 
how it did happen. But almost before she could draw 
breath the wooden regiment which had come up first 
was charging towards the fort with lusty shouts. Shots 
from the guns in the fort mowed them down in long 
lanes, but still they charged on. They swarmed over 
the ruins of the houses, and reached the very walls of 
the fort ; and when they got there they began swarming 
up the walls themselves, just like flies. 

It was a most gallant assault. They were under 
shelter from the guns of the fort, but the soldiers on 
the battlements could reach them, and made great 
havoc in their ranks. They climbed up on each other ’ s 
shoulders, but directly one of them reached the top 


250 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


he was knocked down, and then the next one was 
knocked down, and sometimes a whole line of men was 
toppled over. 

But there were always more to take the place of those 
who fell. A regiment of lead soldiers came dashing 
up to help them, and then another and then another 
still. The advantage of numbers was on the attacking 
side now, but the advantage of position was very much 
with the soldiers of the fort, and it seemed impossible 
that anybody should ever succeed in climbing over the 
top of the wall. 

But a lot of sharpshooters were told off to aim at the 
soldiers who were manning the walls, and they did 
their work very cleverly, picking them off one by one. 
The guns of the fort were trained on them, and they 
went down in large numbers, but they imitated the 
tactics of the artillery, and never fired twice from the 
same spot; and gradually they made an impression. 
There came a moment when the soldiers on the top of 
the wall did not seem quite so thick as before. And 
when that moment came there was a great shout from 
the regiments below, and from the onlookers. For at 
last a soldier attacking the wall scrambled on to the 
top of it. 

They saw him stand for a second laying about him 


THE SIEGE 


251 


at the defenders, and then he went down. But not 
before two or three more had climbed over. 

After that it was quickly finished. More and more 
soldiers reached the top, until presently the defence 
almost ceased, and the defendant forces were driven 
away from the top of the walls altogether. 

Another shout went up when the great gate in front 
of the fort was seen slowly to roll open. And then the 
gallant soldiers ceased climbing up over the wall, and 
poured in through the gate, to finish the work that had 
been so splendidly begun. 



XIX 


SELIM IS CAPTURED 

The final reduction of Dollfort would have taken 
longer than it actually did if the citadel at the top of 
it had not been closed for spring cleaning. Selim and 
Eose would certainly have taken refuge there, and 
would have been defended by those that remained of 
the wooden soldiers. The citadel was very strong, and 
it might not have been possible to take it by assault 
at all. They might have had to starve it into sur- 
render, and that would have taken a long time. 

However, by a lucky chance, the commander of the 
fort, who was rather fussy, had said the day before 
that he couldn’t have the place looking like a pig-sty, 
and it was to be thoroughly cleaned out and white- 
washed. This was being done when Selim drove into 
the fort, and the fighting had followed so soon that 
there had been no opportunity of putting the citadel 
into any sort of shape to resist attack. 

Soon after the fort was taken, Peggy and the others 
were allowed to ride into it through the gateway that 
had been opened by the attacking party. As they came 

252 


SELIM IS CAPTUBED 253 

into the first narrow street of the fort a wooden officer 
was standing by the gate. It was none other than 
Captain Louisa, who saluted his old friends, and said 
he was very glad to see them there. 

Another officer who was standing with him, patted 
him on the back, and said, “You haven’t told them 
that it was you who was first over the wall.” 

“That was nothing,” said Captain Louisa modestly. 
“I was only doing my duty as a soldier should.” 

They congratulated him heartily on his gallant feat 
of arms. He had said nothing about it himself, but it 
was plain that he was pleased at having it known to 
them. Peggy had thought it rather boastful of him 
when he had said in Wooden’s drawing-room that no- 
body would do his duty as a soldier better than he 
should, but it had turned out to be quite true. Wooden 
said how pleased his wife would be to hear what he 
had done, and his friend said that he would be made 
a Major for it, or perhaps even a Colonel. 

They got off their horses at the entrance to the fort, 
for the streets were too narrow and steep to let them 
ride any more. 

Dollfort was an old-fashioned though a very power- 
ful fort. There were houses and shops in the narrow 
streets, and as they went up through them they saw 


254 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


the soldiers taking refreshment in the inns, which were 
rather foreign-looking, and made Peggy think of the 
places she had seen in France. 

The two sides had already made friends again, and 
Leads and Woods were eating and drinking at the same 
tables, and talking in an eager way about the glorious 
tight they had had. That is the best of a toy army. 
When one side wins, the other side bears no malice, 
and of course the regiments that have fought each 
other today may very well be fighting on the same side 
tomorrow. 

The ambulance corps had already finished its work 
inside the fort, and was on its way out to the soldiers 
still lying on the downs. All the defenders of the fort 
who had fallen had been picked up again, and, to judge 
by the merry noise they were making, were none the 
worse for the experience. 

Captain Louisa and his friend walked up through the 
streets with them, and Peggy was interested to learn 
that the friend, whose name was Lieutenant Napoleon, 
belonged to a regiment which had defended the fort. 
He was very indignant at what he had heard about 
Selim. 4 4 Still, it was a good thing we didn ’t know what 
a rascal he was,” he said, “or we shouldn’t have had 
this glorious scrap. ’ ’ 


SELIM IS CAPTURED 


255 


That was the spirit of all the soldiers who had been 
fighting. They often had sham battles, but this had 
been a real one, and they had thoroughly enjoyed it, 
especially the knocking down of the houses outside the 
fort. They would not have been allowed to knock 
them down in a sham fight. 

The exciting and interesting thing now was to find 
Selim and Rose, and get to know where they had hid- 
den the Queen and Lady Grace and Wooden’s mother. 

Lieutenant Napoleon told them that the two car- 
riages had come driving quickly into the fort, and the 
King had put his head out of the window of the first 
and told the sentries to close the gates, and to send 
the Commander of the fort to him at once at the Busby 
Arms, which was the chief inn in the place. Then they 
had driven into the court-yard of the inn, and the gates 
of that had been closed too. 

The commander of the fort was General Wellington- 
Vera. He was an uncle of Lieutenant Napoleon’s, and 
had taken his wife’s name upon marriage, as is the 
custom in Toyland. General Wellington- Vera was a 
brave and capable officer, and had hurried at once to 
the King, as of course he thought him, to take his 
orders. These were that the fort was to be stoutly 
defended to the last man and the last ounce of powder, 



The chief 


inn of the place 




256 




SELIM IS CAPTURED 


257 


against a cowardly and treacherous attack that would 
shortly be made upon the King’s life by the lead sol- 
diers of Dolltown, who had revolted. That was what 
Selim had told him, and of course he had believed it. 

Orders had quickly been given out that every man 
should be found at his post. Then General Welling- 
ton- Vera had made up his mind that he would not wait 
to be attacked, but would himself attack first; and 
Selim had approved of this. The result had been as 
we have already seen, and we need not go over the 
same ground again. 

Lieutenant Napoleon was his uncle’s aide-de-camp, 
and had been by his side during the greater part of 
the battle and the siege. He was now free for a time, 
because the General, who was an old man, had been 
somewhat exhausted by his exertions, and had gone 
home«to lie down. He said that his uncle had told him 
nothing about any ladies being with Selim. He had 
talked to him in a room alone. In fact, Lieutenant 
Napoleon was surprised to hear that there were any 
ladies there at all, and still more surprised to hear 
that one of them was Queen Rosebud. He had known 
by this time that she was alive, and that Selim was a 
usurper, but not that he had tried to run away with 
her. 


258 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


‘ ‘ We ought to find them at once, ’ ’ he said. ‘ 4 1 am in 
command here as long as uncle is lying down, and I 
shall be pleased to put myself at your disposal.” 

They went first of all to the Busby Arms. The gate 
of the courtyard was still shut, and Lieutenant Napol- 
eon banged on it with the hilt of his sword, and called 
out that if it was not opened at once he would give 
orders for it to be blown up with gunpowder. 

“You had all better take shelter,’ ’ he said, as he 
was waiting for a reply. “They might try sniping at 
us. I don’t mind for myself, but I shouldn’t like to 
see any of you hit.” 

So they went behind a wall, all except Colonel Jim 
and the Colonel of Lancers and Captain Louisa, who, 
being soldiers, scorned to shelter themselves, and 
waited with Lieutenant Napoleon. 

But there was no occasion for alarm. The- gate was 
soon opened by the innkeeper, who had been terrified 
by the bombardment of the fort, especially as one of 
the cannon balls had fallen into the garden behind the 
inn and broken a cucumber frame. 

The innkeeper’ was as shocked as all the rest when 
he heard how wicked Selim had really been, and very 
surprised at being told that one of the ladies who had 
come in the carriage with him was Queen Rosebud. 


SELIM IS CAPTURED 


259 


“She must have been the one they said was ill,” he 
said. i 1 Her head was all covered up when they brought 
her in. They asked for a cup of tea for her, so I 
went down into the kitchen myself, because, you see, 
the girl what ” 

“Never mind about all that,” said the Lord Chan- 
cellor. “Where are they now? Take us to them at 
once.” 

But alas! the innkeeper could only tell them that 
they had gone. 

“The King,” he said — “well, I suppose I mustn’t 
call him that now — but Selim, he went out with the 
General when the firing began, and soon after he’d gone 
the ladies must have slipped off. That’s how I think 
it must have happened. Anyhow, when I went up to 
tell them about my cucumber frame they’d gone, and 
I haven ’t set eyes on them since. ’ ’ 

They did not waste much more time at the inn. 
They set out to make a thorough search of the houses 
in the fort, under the direction of Lieutenant Napo- 
leon, who now showed himself very zealous on the 
scent. 

There were not, after all, a great many hiding places. 
It was only in the lower streets of the fort that there 
were shops and houses. Above that there were only 


260 PEGGY IN TOYLAND 

barracks and defence works, and the citadel at the top 
of all. 

None of the soldiers whom Lieutenant Napoleon 
questioned had seen anything of Selim since the tak- 
ing of the fort. Up to that time he had been with Gen- 
eral Wellington-Vera, overlooking the defence, and 
many of them had seen him. Of the Queen, and the 
other lady dolls, nobody had seen anything, from first 
to last. 

“The only thing left is to search the. citadel, ’ ’ said 
Lieutenant Napoleon. “I don’t suppose they are 
there, but I don’t see where else they can be.” 

So they set out, and climbed the steep streets up to 
the top of the fort. 

As they went up, they met a lot of female dolls com- 
ing down with pails and mops and brooms. These 
were the char-dolls who had been cleaning up the cita- 
del, and it speaks well for their sense of duty that they 
had not left off their work during the bombardment. 
But they were all wives of soldiers, and had been 
trained to do their duty, whate’er befell. 

Peggy was interested in these dolls, who were chat- 
tering away at a great rate, and anxious to know what 
had been happening while they were busy. But, being 
wives of soldiers, they were too well disciplined to ask 


SELIM IS CAPTURED 261 

questions of the officers, and nobody took much notice 
of them except Peggy. 

They were mostly dressed in print gowns, but some 
of them wore big cloaks, because the evening was be- 



ginning to get a trifle chilly. Peggy noticed in the 
crowd of them two who had the hoods of their cloaks 
right over their heads. One of them was very tall, 
but was bent, as if she had rheumatism. She had the 



262 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


arm of the other one, who was carrying a pail, and they 
were talking with their heads close together, but not 
speaking to anybody else. 

They had just passed, rather quickly, when an idea 
suddenly sprang into Peggy’s mind. She clutched at 
Wooden’s arm, and said, “Look at those two! I be- 
lieve they are disguised.” 

It was the remembrance of Colonel Jim’s cloak when 
he had got in to them in the House of Cards that had 
made the idea come into her head. And perhaps the 
same connection of ideas made Colonel Jim himself 
sharper than he generally was ; for the moment Peggy 
had spoken he called out to the char-dolls to stop. 

Most of them, being well disciplined, stopped at once, 
at the word of command, but the two in cloaks went 
on, as if they had not heard, slightly quickening their 
pace, but not running. 

That was enough for Teddy. He sprang after them. 
‘ ‘ Here, you two ! ” he said. ‘ 4 Let ’s have a look at your 
faces. I’m sure you’ve no reason to be ashamed of 
them.” 

They began to run. But Teddy ran after them, and 
put his foot in front of the tall one, who tripped and 
fell sprawling in the road. Teddy tore off the cloak, 


SELIM IS CAPTURED 


263 


and disclosed, not an inoffensive char-doll like the rest, 
but the gross form and sinister features of the rascally 
Selim. 



XX 


THE LAST 

There lay the villain who had worked such mischief 
among the simple and generous inhabitants of Toyland, 
and, above all, to their noble Queen, who had loaded 
him with benefits. He lay on the muddy road, blink- 
ing and scowling at his captors, well knowing that his 
game was up and his doom would soon fall. He was 
a sorry spectacle, in his discovery and disgrace. It 
was checkmate for him finally, and no further move was 
left to him. 

As for the chief partner in his crimes, who had tried 
to escape with him — the renegade Composition doll 
Rose, who had so completely failed to obey the natural 
instincts of upright dollhood — it was easy enough to 
recognize her in the other cloaked figure, when once 
Selim’s disguise had been torn from him. It was 
Wooden’s aunt who sprang forward and snatched 
the cloak away from Rose. “So here you are, my 
beauty!” she exclaimed exultantly. “Got you at last! 
And if you try to get away I’ll scratch your eyes out.” 

264 


THE LAST 


265 


But Rose made no effort to get away. She did not 
cower before them, as the wretched Selim did. He 
made no effort even to rise from the ground until Lieu- 
tenant Napoleon called up two soldiers to seize him 
and hold him fast. But Rose drew herself up to her full 
height, and flashed scorn upon her captors from her 
dark eyes. There was something grand in her, in 
spite of the wickedness of her behaviour, but it was 
not the sort of grandeur that it does anybody any good 
to admire. The only thing that can be said about her 
is that with such a bold character it is a pity that she 
had not used her powers to do right instead of wrong. 
Then they might have led her to great heights. As it 
was, they had brought her down to ruin. 

They questioned her as to what had been done with 
the Queen and the other dolls who had been carried 
off; but she would answer them nothing. Her con- 
temptuous look seemed to say, “You may do what you 
like with me, and I shall only go on despising you. 
But you will get nothing out of me, so it is waste of 
time to try.” 

The wretched Selim, however, was more amenable 
to pressure. “If you will let me free to go away,” 
he whined , 1 ‘ I will tell you everything . 1 ’ 

“Give him a twist of the arm,” said Lieutenant Na- 


266 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


poleon, “and see if that will make him tell us. He 
isn’t going to be let free.” 

One of the soldiers screwed Selim’s arm, not very 
hard, because it wasn’t necessary. Directly he felt 
the slightest pain, Selim gave way at once. “Oh, 
don ’t hurt me!” he cried out — the wretched, cowardly 
creature! “They are in the citadel — quite safe and 
comfortable. I might have executed them all, but I 
haven’t touched a hair of their heads.” 

“Bring the prisoners along with us,” said Lieuten- 
ant Napoleon. “We will go up to the citadel at once.” 

They mounted to the top of the fort. The citadel 
was a great barrack of a place, with one fine hall, and 
a regular hive of smaller rooms, besides the fortified 
works. If it could have been used for a final defence 
of Dollfort there would have been room in it for lots 
of soldiers, and everything would have been there to 
enable the defenders to support a long siege. But it 
had all been cleared out. The courtyard inside the 
gates was encumbered with furniture, and even the 
guns had dust-sheets over them. The great hall and 
the lower rooms had all been thoroughly cleaned, but 
the char-dolls had not reached the upper rooms yet, 
and it was to one of these that Selim, who was now 
eager to tell everything, led them. 


THE LAST 


267 


He had locked the door, and thrown away the key out 
the window, as he was obliged to confess, but it did 
not take long to break it open. Colonel Jim, who was 
the biggest and strongest of them all, and who was 
very anxious to rescue Lady Grace as quickly as pos- 
sible, put his shoulder to the door and gave one mighty 
push, and it flew open. 

The room was very small. It had a narrow, barred 
window, and the only furniture in it was a low bed and 
a wooden chair. It was, in fact, a prison cell, used for 
locking up soldiers who had committed offences. And 
this was the place in which Selim had locked up the un- 
fortunate Queen, and the other two dolls, without any 
food or even water. Supposing he had escaped, as he 
had hoped to do! They would have stayed there all 
night, and could only have been released if they had 
managed to attract the attention of the char-dolls who 
would come to the citadel the next morning. 

Colonel Jim was not very quick at understanding 
things, as we have seen, but he understood this directly 
his eyes took in what was inside the door he had burst 
open. He turned round and gave Selim a violent 
buffet on the side of his face, which made the miserable 
creature cower away and cry out. He had still to be 


268 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


punished for his crimes, but this first instalment of 
his punishment made everybody feel better. 

Queen Rosebud was sitting on the chair with her 
hands on her lap, the picture of stately patience ; Lady 
Grace and Wooden’s mother were sitting on the bed, 
and it was evident that Lady Grace had been crying. 

The Queen rose slowly from her chair. “I wish to 
be taken away from this place,” she said. 

She was very royal, even under the dreadful circum- 
stances in which she found herself, and after all she 
had gone through. The Lord Chancellor advanced to- 
wards her and bowed very low. “If your Majesty 
will deign to lead your loyal subjects to the great hall,” 
he said, “justice can be done at once on these malefac- 
tors, and in the meantime preparations can be made 
for your Majesty’s convenience for the night. It will 
be too late to go back to your Majesty’s Capital until 
tomorrow. ’ ’ 

The Queen simply said, “Come, Lady Grace,” and 
walked out of the cell. The wretched Selim tried to 
draw her attention to himself with a whining prayer 
for mercy, as she passed him. But she took not the 
smallest notice. She did, however, make a slight in- 
clination of the head towards Peggy, as she passed 
her; and Peggy felt proud and honoured, just as if 


THE LAST 


269 


it had been a real Queen who had taken notice of her. 
But it cannot be too often repeated that Queen Rose- 
bud was like a real Queen, in all her ways and in all 
her deeds. 

They went into the great hall, and a seat was brought 
for the Queen at the top of it. All the rest of them 
stood. Selim, between two soldiers, and Rose, between 
two others, were brought up before her. 

The Lord Chancellor cleared his throat, as if it lay 
with him to open the proceedings, but he was a very 
different Lord Chancellor before Queen Rosebud from 
what he had been in the Hall of Audience before the 
usurping Selim. When the Queen held up her hand 
he stopped his preparations for speech at once, and 
listened respectfully to what she had to say. 

She spoke slowly, in a low musical voice, and every 
word she said could be heard plainly by everybody in 
the great hall. 

‘ ‘ King Selim is to be taken at once to the coast ,’ 9 
she said, “and put into a boat, with oars and a sail, 
and enough food for several days. He is to row or 
sail away from my kingdom, and never to come back 
here. If he does so, he is to be executed. Take him 
away.” 

That was all, and she waited for her commands to 


270 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


be carried out before speaking again. She had given 
the miserable creature his title. He was a King, 
though not King of Toyland. He had been cast on 
the shores of her island destitute and solitary, and had 
been right royally treated. And he had repaid her as 
we have seen. But she made no accusation against 
him. He was simply to be sent away. 

The wretched being was led off by the two soldiers 
who had guarded him. He went without a word. He 
knew that his life had been most mercifully spared, 
for he could row or sail to land in a few hours, or be 
picked up by a ship. Let us hope that he felt some 
compunction for his many crimes. He passed out of 
the hall between the two guards, the great door clanged 
after him, and he was seen no more. 

The Queen’s face changed as she turned towards 
Rose. Selim was a foreigner, and in getting rid of 
him she had done all that she needed to do. But Rose 
was her own subject, and must be dealt with in a differ- 
ent fashion. 

“As for you,” she said, “you must stand your trial 
according to the laws of the land. If you choose to 
stand it now, with me for your judge, you may do so. 
Say whatever you please in your own defence, and I 
will listen to you. If not, I wash my hands of you, 


THE LAST 271 

and yon will be sent to prison to await your trial by 
jury.” 

It was an extraordinary act of clemency for the 
Queen to deal with Rose’s case herself, and no doubt 
Rose knew that she would get more merciful treatment 
than if her crimes were left to the judgment of a jury 
of dolls, who could not help being furious with her for 
what she had done. 

But all she said, in a voice of scorn, was, “Oh, try 
me now, and finish it. I have done what I have done, 
and I wish I had succeeded. As I’ve failed, do what 
you like with me. ’ ’ 

The Queen looked at her with her calm, steady gaze, 
and Rose’s eyes dropped before it. “I am more sorry 
for you than you are for yourself,” the Queen said. 
“I know that you have been led away by spite and jeal- 
ousy, and those are feelings that cause great unhappi- 
ness to whoever possesses them. It is your misfortune 
that you have those bad qualities, but it is in your 
power to conquer them. It is my hope that you will 
succeed in doing so. Go! You are free.” 

The guards on either side of Rose fell away from 
her. She stood staring at the Queen with wide eyes, 
as if she could hardly believe what had been said to 
her. Then she realized that she was free, to go where 


272 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


she liked, and that she was not to be punished at all. 
She covered her face with her hands and burst into 
tears, and then hurried away out of the hall. Her 
proud and rebellious spirit would not have quailed 
before any punishment that might have been meted out 
to her, but the punishment would have left her no bet- 
ter than she had been before. But the free pardon, 
which she could never have expected, had broken her 
down. It was to be hoped that she would really re- 
pent of her bad ways now, and be a better doll than 
she had ever been before. 

When Rose had left the hall, the Queen ’s face light- 
ened. “All that is left for me now,” she said, “is to 
thank such of my subjects as have been so active and 
successful in setting me free from the plots that have 
surrounded me. And first of all, I must thank the dear 
little girl who is not my subject, but has come here on a 
visit to find us in trouble that is now at an end. She 
must come again. That is the only way in which I 
can reward her.” 

She smiled graciously and sweetly at Peggy, who 
felt extraordinarily pleased. 

Then she turned to Wooden. “You have always 
had my respect and liking,” she said, “and I had in- 
tended to have appointed you today to a post of hon- 


THE LAST 


273 


our about my person. I do so now, under the title of 
Lady-in-Waiting in Ordinary, and Extra Bed-doll of 



the Royal Chamber. Your duties will bring you into 
constant relationship with me, and I look forward with 
pleasure to making you my friend,” 


274 


REGGY IN TOYLAND 


It was most graciously said, and Wooden was so 
overcome with pride and pleasure that she could only 
stammer out her thanks, and promise to perform her 
duties as well as ever she could. 

The Queen then called for a sword. Colonel Jim 
handed her his, and to his great surprise she knighted 
him with it, and then conferred the same honour upon 
Teddy, who was even more surprised, as he was the 
first bear in Toyland who had ever received it. 

When she had done this, she rose from her seat, and 
intimated that she wished to retire for the night, but 
before doing so she said a few gracious words to all 
who were in the hall. She said with a smile to Colonel 
Jim that she hoped soon to know him under the title 
of Sir Jim Lady-Grace, which was a happy way of say- 
ing that she would forward a marriage between him 
and her favourite lady-in-waiting. And she told 
Teddy, who was so overcome with the honour that had 
been conferred on him that his customary flightiness 
had departed for the moment, that she thought he 
ought to get married too, and she should always be 
pleased to welcome to her Court Sir Teddy and Lady 
Bear-W ooden ’s-Aunt. 

It may readily be guessed into what a flutter this 
suggestion put Wooden’s aunt. While the Queen was 



She conferred the same honour upon Teddy- 


275 


276 


PEGGY IN TOYLAND 


talking to her, and hearing about her having been tied 
up to the tree by Selim and Rose, she was quiet and 
respectful. But directly the Queen’s back was turned, 
and Teddy came up to her with a grin to see whether 
she liked the idea of marrying him, she cut a caper, 
and Teddy cut another, so that Wooden’s mother had 
to remind them both that they would belong for the 
future to the Upper Ten Thousand, and must learn to 
behave themselves. 

The shades of evening were beginning to close in 
as the Queen left the hall, and suddenly Peggy began 
to feel as if she had had a very long day, and would 
like to go to sleep in her own little bed at home, if only 
she could get there. She began to wonder if it would 
be necessary to go over again all the long journey be- 
tween Toyland and her home, and turned to ask 
Wooden how they were to get back. 

But as she turned, the hall and all the dolls in it 
seemed to be fading away, and as she opened her 
mouth to speak 

She awoke, to find herself lying in her own little 
white bed, with dear Wooden in her arms, and Teddy 


THE LAST 


277 


with his impudent face lying on the pillow, pointing 
one paw towards the open window, into which the 
happy morning sun was shining. 

























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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




